W5A: A Few Initial Questions

Hey all,

I just got my first laptop--the W5A (with upgraded RAM to 1.25gb and upgraded HD to 5400RPM) and had some issues I was hoping you could help with:

1. With regards to the RAM, the system properties only shows that I have 1.23Gb, running at 183MHz. I checked the BIOS, which confirms that there is only 1264Mb of RAM. Is this normal or is there potentially something wrong with my memory? Shouldn't I have 1.25 Gb of RAM at 400 MHz?

2. My touchpad sensitivity and screen resolution reset upon reboot.

3. What kind of noise is normal for an optical drive? In addition to the spinning, I also hear a very distinctive sound when it's reading: two high-pitched noises in quick succession, which repeats. Is this normal or does this mean that my drive is struggling for some reason?

4. I'm thinking of reformatting and doing a clean install. Is this recommended?

Any answers/comments will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dingass

 

1. yes, vary.... ram doesn't always show 1024 or even 256.... but somewhere lower, but close....

2. check to make sure you're not in presentation mode... that mode wants to set the res at 800x600 for some reason.....

3. it's a super slim drive... that's not struggling, the tray is thinner and vibrates more, but it's not hurting the drive.

4. I wouldn't bother, honestly... a clean install it to get rid of all this extra crap companies put on, but Asus really doesn't load anything but the drivers.

 

Let us know your battery life when you get a chance. Trying to decide if I want to order one but the reports of 2 hours (with the 6 cell) have kept me away. When you pull the plug when fully charged what does Windows report you have remaining?

Also interested in fan noise and heat output.

Thanks.

 

You can surely get 2 hours, but that's the max limit with everyone maxed out.

When you figure this has basically the same set up as the S5a, but with a better screen, bluetooth, RF...... if you have all those on and the screen as bright as it'll go, the battery can get cut down..... 3.5/4 hours should be "normal" under "average" use and average doesn't mean average for you, but just internet, email, word type use.

 

I just want to know from someone that actually uses the notebook what the battery life is doing basic tasks like email, web browsing, and word processing. Wifi on, bluetooth off, and IR off, brightness at about 25%, and cpu throttled for power saving (I use SpeedswitchXP). I get 5 hours on my 17" Gateway m680 (Ultra Bright Screen as well) doing similar tasks and using the settings I just mentioned.

Justin- Do you have a W5A around that you can test battery life using similar settings I mentioned above?

Someone on the boards here said Windows reported 2:20 or so right after unplugging the AC on their W5A. That isn't going to cut it for me.

 

Already been done and again, it's what the forum is for. Windows battery meter is horrible on any system, but it's also based on a calculation of what is currently running and it averages the battery life based on what's going on at that moment. 25 minutes a cell is normal on all of these systems under normal use..... you can get 35 minutes or more out of any of the systems if you really try.... that's just the cold hard facts about the basic configuration and breaking the batteries down into individual cells to compare.

 

That's great and all, but it doesn't answer my question. While Windows isn't 100 percent accurate, it comes pretty damn close. My m680 reports 5+ hours and that is exactly what I get. I guess I will have to hold off until someone who has actually used the notebook under the conditions I listed can give me a better idea of real world numbers.

 

That is great and all. All I'm telling you is that there are a dozen different ways or more to use these computers at different cpu speeds, brightnesses, wireless stuff on and off, ect...... and all the systems have different batteries, but they all use the same cells......... so if you want to get a scientific answer, take absolutely everyone's battery life on every asus systems, devide that by the number of cells their system uses and you're going to see the average come right at about 25 minutes per cell with about 35 minutes per cell on the absolute high side (low configuration and light use) and 15 minutes per cell (high configuartion 2.1ghz cpu/7200rpm hdd/dedicated graphics and heavy use - max settings) ........

You relying on one person giving you their battery life isn't going to tell you what you're going to get and it certainly doesn't mean that person actually knows what they're talking about..... do the average like I said... infact, it's probably a great thread to start... I think I'm going to do that right now.

 

I don't want a scientific answer, I just want an estimate under the conditions I listed. You seem to be ignoring that I DID give you a set of conditions to test under. I am not agreeing with him that the laptop only gets 2 hrs of battery life, that is what he said. He also said it was doing basic tasks, nothing intensive. Anyway, hopefully you will get some replies to the other thread so I can get a better idea.

 

BTW- Using your figures the 6 cell on the W5A should get around 150 minutes under "normal" use. That seems to be right on with the ~2+ Hours that the other guy reported (as did Windows).

Link to previous thread.

 

I'm not in presentation mode. The resolution issue occurred with my laptop plugged in on super performance mode, but it doesn't seem to be a problem when it's running on battery.

Any ideas on the touchpad sensitivity?

As soon as I get a chance, I'm going to download and update all the drivers. Will post again once that happens.

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

Not if the workload is reasonably constant. The battery simply reports the wattage and amperage of it's last topped off charge, the current charge, and the current draw.

Exactly. With a predictaple workload it's pretty much spot on. If it's not: Calibrate the battery from within the BIOS as it may be reporting the wrong values back to windows.

I suggest Mobilemeter for a nice graphed real-time representaion of power draw. Everyone can then check for themselves 'how much does bloetooth use', 'how much does power saving on Wi-Fi save me', 'how much do I save by undervolting', 'how much does screen brightness affect battery life' and so on and so on...

 

Try the latest drivers from Synaptics .

 

Right, but when you're checking your meter, you're normally not doing much.... you have to really benchmark the life in mobilemark to get a true sense of the life. After all, all of these factory numbers come from mobile mark....... and that's how all of the reviewers test for battery life as well.

 

For comparison purposes - i.e. A lasts 15% longer than B - between notebook A and notebook B, yes. As long as you can make reasonably sure that the testing conditions where the same. For real use, no. Relying on numbers in hours and minutes from an application you'll never ever use youself is no good in the real world.

I so love the small asterixes an the microscopic print stating that complete testing conditions are available on request, and disclaiming any statement regarding actual usable battery life. They all run the idle test with everything off and the screen at an ureadable brightness. Even more unreliable than advertised gas mileage used to be.

 

No, actually mobile mark is a standard and testing on a said system is based on (for say the barebone systems) ..... Asus uses a middle of the ground configuration as it can't be idential to everyone's but it's "average" ... for a sytem like the W3, they test the spec we get into the states........ I'm not saying you're going to get back mobilemark reads, but if you want to look into what it tests before you ***** about it, you might be interested to see what it does........ it's the ONLY way to even out the field between all of the configurations that you could have, all of the options you could have on and off and all of the human errorr.......

If you want to compare that to gas milegae on a car..... it's certainly not tested under "power driving" ....... it's tested on normal conditions..... city/highway. ...... just like for battery life you'd test max powersavings / normal usage / max power

 

Standard? Like what? The testing guidlines? It's not like you have to follow them. I know many review sites do not. Takes too much time. It's not like most pople would have even seen Mobilemark and know what those guidelines are. It's not like you can check. Don't make Mobilemark out to be anything more than it is. You can manipulate the numbers as much as you like. Do the battery life and performace measures come from the same run, for example? I know manufacturers numbers where they did not. Little actually stated. Much implied. UP TO 4 hours of battery life. Nonsense. That doesn't tell anyone anything. Disclose the testing conditions up front. Then We'll talk.

If you're absolutely sure that Asus is playing nice and doesn't attempt to stretch their numbers, who am I to argue (edit: actually I haven't seen then quoting battery life figures in official marketing lately), but don't present Mobilemark as some standard that's universally comparable. It's not.

 

Sorry for bumping in here like this, guys, but I have another question. My wcourier.exe is 'not responding' every time I try to shut down.

I tried googling this program, but only one response came up (linked back to this forum, funny enough). I think it has to do with the wireless, but I'm not sure...

 

No, you don't have to follow it, but without benchmarks there is not way to compare battery life across makes and models and configurations... that's why it's called a standard. Of course your don't have to follow it, but you're not going to be able to give anyone a dead on accurate reading of what the system is capable of without it.

 

Right. OK. We agree in principle, but reality is that you simply can not trust to compare Mobilemark results across different testers unless you have trust in the testing methodology employed by said testers.

To get back on topic: My point is this: Asus could, as some manufacturers do, claim that the W5 had 'UP TO' 7 hours of battey life, and then ship all units with the 3-cell. If they don't: Kudos to them for not quoting inaccurate, yet semi-truthful, numbers. They are, in fact, above average in that regard as far as my experiece goes. The key issue is to not trust the benchmark, but to trust the tester. For Mobilemark there are usually far too many undisclosed varables to do reliable cross comparisons. In addition to this you have the fact hat one system/battery may to better at a high power draw while another may do better at a lower one.

My Mobilemark interpretation guidelines:

1. If you trust the source relative performance should be comparable for that paricular workload.
2. For any other workload it may or may not be.
3. Disregard absolute numbers in hours and minutes.
4. Manufacturers numbers will rarely reflect real use.

BTW: A while ago when Asus shipped the S5N around here they sent a high end CPU along with the 3 cell battery in the review units and subsequently got slaughtered against weaker speced competition. In reality they shipped both the 3 cell AND the 9 cell in the most common retail/ensemble system with a 1.5 Banias. It totally rocked in price/performance and versatility, but yet there were Mobilemark numbers from 'respectable sites' saying that it's battery life sucked. No disclosure. No caveats. Just that the S5 had poor battery life. This kind of oversight is common and it goes both ways.

Bottom line: If i were in the market for a Centrino notebook (and I always am) I'd look at the rated battery capacity first, then - depending on usage pattern - specs, then reports from people doing similar work as the task it would be reqired to do, and then finally at synthetic 'benchmarks'.

 

I know what you're saying, but the people reviewing have to judge the mobile mark numbers against the number of cell's in the battery. That's something I KNOW they don't do and it's a shame because as we're seeing in the other thread I started on battery life...... we'll see how this stacks up against real world times. But you may use a system one way that gets an hour of life and the person who thinks that sucks may use it in a manner that gets 4 hours......

The bottom line, REALLY is...... mobile mark numbers even out all systems...... divide their number by the number of cells in the battery and you'll have an even number to go by to know which system gets what. If you know that a dell you have gets this amount of life per cell under mobile mark...... and this sytem gets the same or better.... then you will KNOW it's going to be better for your situation.

I'm curious as to how old you are not to pick up on the obvious reasons for benchmarking. It's not to give a rock solid... everyone is going to get this number..... but it's used to compare when you don't have one or two systems you're trying to compare in front of you....... This sort of goes along the lines of the MPG for cars.... some cars might have a bigger tank so you'll physically get more miles out of it (just like a bigger battery) and a bigger engine (better performance which is resulting in lower MPGs)..... you must take that into account.

 

So do you stand by the 4 hours for the W5A that is listed on your site?

I think Mobilemark is a waste. I want to know real world numbers, not what the system can do when stressed to the max. I almost NEVER stress the system when on battery. I do see where some people would want to know, but not me.

 

How about old enough to have both bought, sold and benchmarked computers and computer related products for a living. And definately old enough not to trust them outright just because someone say that they're correct without any additional information to back up their claim?

I'll tell you what. Try speccing out a gouvernment-, or large company, contract or similar. Decide what performance in key areas are acceptable to this particular order and then try to get the best offer for a couple of $ mill a pop. You'll get so assf***** by the manufacturers you won't know what hit you. Or at lest they'll try... Scepticism rule.

(And so does Asus, BTW.)

 

Mobilemark isn't stressing the system to the max. I's either an idle test or an appliacation test consisting of 'real world' usage within (primarily) MS Office and Adobe applications along with some others. There are pauses with no activity and it's designed to simulate a 'genuine office workload'.

 

Regardless, Mobilemark benchmarks are almost always much lower than what I actually get when using a notebook. So it is at least stressing it more than I would while on battery.

 

In my experience it's not that stressfull at all. On most notebooks you could play back a DVD for less time than you could 'play' Mobilemark.

But as I said above: If used properly and consistently, Mobilemark should be quite reliable. If one notebook scores, say 20% more than another from a trusted source, it's not a far stretch to imagine that the difference should be similar for most similar tasks.

 

WOW..... Did I say a normal person, under normal conditions is going to get what mobile mark comes up with? No, I did not.... not in the least. Mobile mark comes up with two thing...... 1. maximum battery life - which is nice to know because it's what your computer is ideally capable of for someone who gives a damn. 2. there is a productivity test that runs through normal applications as a "normal" person would do and comes up with an average number.

It's a comparison tool to compare between multiple systems to say which one is going to have the best battery life. If you have system A and system B.... say both come up with a score of 240 minutes in mobile mark. That means that if you run system A to a point where you get say 120 minutes of life...... without even testing, system B, under the same conditions you put system A under.... should get the exact same score. That is ofcourse if you could test it in the same exact why again... so it'll be slightly off due to human error, but you get the idea.

If mobile mark produces a score on system A of 120 minutes and system B of 240 minutes....... if you stress the system to the point of getting only say 120 minutes out of system B...... there isn't a chance in hell you're going to be able to get 120 minutes on system A by doing the exact same thing.

So with that..... you can all think mobile mark is a waste.... and therefore all reviews are just a waste (might as well call up the magazines)...... it's a tool and it's for people who know what they're doing to use to figure things out.

I'll hold by our site's "claim" that 4 hours is possible on the W5. It's not a claim, but a more realistic number based on the average of our tested combined with our customers average lives....... Asus' mobile mark numbers for the W5 are in the 6 hour range...... any average system under max powersaving features, running a lower end configuration and integrated graphics should be able to pull almost 45-50 minutes under a light load (internet, email, word)...... Considering thats what most people use a system like the W5 for... that's handy to know.

For us, we like to use more doable battery lives that best suit the type of customer we have. For the W3 for instance, it's set on our site for 4-5 hours of normal use possible..... I get around 3, but I'm much harder on the system than an "average" person would be. Some people can get more like 6, but they're using it very lightly.

I'm just not sure what "real world" battery life reports are really going to do... the first person to respond might get an hour..... another maybe 3... still another maybe 6..... if you can't benchmark the systems, you'll never know if you're getting all of the settings correct... or maybe even one of the batteries is bad but they don't know... I don't love mobile mark either, I'm just saying it's a tool and it should be used as one. It's not an all knowing being.... we're adults and should be able to use a tool to come up with the information we need.

Good luck with that.

 

Sounds about right to me. For a light workload, like typing in Word, with the screen dimmed a bit.

Run Mobilemark as the guidlines tell you to,OOTB, brightness settings and so on, however and you won't get much more than three with the 6-cell. I have both personal and second party experience with this, as well as reviews with similar results.

Now: Who's right? Both, of course. Just goes to show you can't blindly trust results Mobilemark.

 

I was just curious if you pulled the number from the spec sheet or if you actually came up with that number yourself. Now I know.

Anyway, I guess I will just have to take my chances and order the W5A and see what happens. If it doesn't work out there is always Ebay...

 

This isn't exactly right or wrong..... This isn't about "trusting" mobile mark.... it's about using it.... can I stress that again? .... It's a TOOL to help your research. It's the control subject if you will..... It's not about me being right and you being wrong or vice versa... it's about using it like a tool. If I have to say it again before I'm done, I will.... but if uses as "the word" on battery life for that system, it's going to look like an unobtainable number for most.. but if used as a tool (there I go again) ....... that's the control to compare properly... that's all it is.

By the way, I'm often pissed at the number mobile mark spits out. For one..... I've seen mobile mark put out higher numbers than I would usually get (but then again, I'm not the average user) ...... but I've also, in one BS magazine review we got, saw mobile mark numbers under what I could get. In fact, I saw a 1.0ghz ulv S5ne w/ 40gb/4200rpm hard drive...... get worse numbers than the 1.6ghz M5n w/ 40gb/5400rpm hard drive..... We submitted both machines for the same review and even though a normal person would look at that result and say... "ok, something's fishy" ... maybe they screwed up or whatever...... because that's not right.

My biggest problem with mobile mark isn't mobile mark itself, it's the reviewers who are using it...... if you can't run the same test a few times to make sure you're getting the same numbers........ you're right, a single pass is no good.

 

A single pass with the recommended condtioning runs should yield the same results over and over again. That is; everything else beeing equal. The latter sentence is the one that's not reliable.

Other than that I think we agree that Mobilemark both can be, and is, a very useful tool. I'll reiterate: Don't trust the numbers, trust the source. And trust (absolute numbers from) the source only if they give you enough information about the test conditions so that they are reproducable. It's not a 'standard'. Different outlets can, and will, give different results depending on how they test.

Edit: Spelling.

 

ok, wait... you agree it's a useful, ok.... good. You're right it *should* come up with the same results and those reviewers *should* run them multiple times just to be sure..... but this is the real world and that doesn't happen all the time for reasons we all fall victim too (getting out of work on time, too much stuff going on, tested on a friday.... etc).

 

Sure it's useful. Screen dimmed down to 1/3 with WLAN on doing light work, Typing in Word, MP3, browsing and so on, my W3 average at about 12W. I can't imagine the W5 drawing much more (don't remember the actual numbers, didn't play with it for more than a few hours) and with it's 47W/Hr default battery, 4 hours in Mobilemark sounds perfectly doable. Then again so does 3 OOTB.

Think sports: There are strict regulations for record breaking achievements to be registered as records. Testing conditions have to be sufficiently similar: People have been documented to fly much more than nine meters in a storm but that doesn't make it the world long jump record. My argument was only you calling it a 'standard' as in meaning a universal measure.

 

I see...... well it's a "standard" as far as *comparing* goes... it's why the reviewers use it and why the software was made, as a means of comparision.... but it's in no way or do I think what I said could be twisted into meaning a *universal measure* ... but it is the best we have to compare..... With what mobile mark gives you...... true if you never had a notebook before to judge.... you might never know. But like I said.. if you have one, you could run mobile mark on yours and then do the math to figure out how much better or worse a different system would be for exactly how you use it.

If you don't have another laptop, all you can do is compare one laptop's mobile mark score to another........ that will not tell you what life you'll get, but it will tell you that under the same conditions, no matter what you do... this laptop will give you more like than that laptop......

So for the purposes of someone shopping for a new system, there are two ways you could take advantage of it. If someone has a laptop, but can't run mobile mark on it to test out what score they would currently have..... then it's not really much help to them at all. But you have to see how it would give a means of comparing...... say that current laptop gets that person an hour of life, but mobile mark says it's got a max of 2 hours.......... well figure on a laptop that's mobile mark life is 4 hours...... you'll probably get 2...... but it gives you the basis to fill in the variables and figure it out pretty darn close to what you're going to get with out you use your system.....

 

Well... Mobilemark does only cost $499.95 so Iguess that's reasonable...

You can do this by, say, playing a DVD as well. That's something anyone can test and relate to.

Our disagreement seems to be that you somehow think that Mobilemark is inherently more reliable than other benchmarks of battery life. I think it's not. It is, however, very convenient for a reviewer as it purposes to create an easily reproducible (and most of all unattended) and constant review platform.

For the consumers: Not so much. First of all because it's a test that's not only synthetic, but also unavailable, and secondly because reviewers, as anyone else, are prone to error and folly. That and the fact that any two reviewers may, or may not, employ the same testing standards.

 

Yeah, it does cost a lot, doesn't it? Well I think I got a copy because some idiot at a magazine left their benchmarking disc in one of our computers........ but I see that point.. but still, you could look up scores on their site and stuff like that.. it's for comparing.

You really can't benchmark a system by just playing a dvd...... you have to be sure all of your settings are the same.......including the important ones... backlight, cpu, volume (don't ever forget volume) ......... I mean that's a poor mans benchmark, but you can't expect it to be that accurate because one person is undoubtably going to forget one setting and that would ruin the whole thing.

I don't care though if it's mobile mark or something else....... hell, if a company came up with software that just typed in a forum all day to test battery life... that's fine..... as long as it's a repeatable test that would then result in comparible marks. For all I care mobile mark could come up with 3 days worth of battery life, but as long as it's comparable to another notebook........ you can figure out what YOUR life would be. Mobile mark is just the only one that I know of that actually tests normal notebook productivity tasks and stresses the benefits of powersaving features like speedstep and powergear, etc.

 

That's just it: Same with mobilemark. How do you know that these things are constant there? Somesite.com might decide to test all notebooks in their OOTB condition. Someothersite.net think that it's most fair to mute the sound, disable wireless and turn the brightness all the way up. Thisothersite.org might just give the mobilemark disc to their reviewers and let them have go at it. Somereviewer might have his cellphone discoverable to all and BT on the notebook set to search for devices, someotherreviewer might not. Few sites will have an explicit policy on such things, most have no policy at all, much less a publically stated one. How would you know?

 

I'm not talking about that....... if you get two reviews that says the W3 has the same mobile mark number... I think you can trust it. I'm not and nor would I ever say to take one source.....

 

I ordered a W5A so... I'll post MY battery life results when I get it (hopefully tomorrow).

 

congrats! you can tell me what i'm doing wrong when you get it

 

Got it. Not real impressed so far but I will hold further judgement until I use it some more.

Quick question. Out of the box my max resolution is 1280x768. Everywhere I have looked the panel is rated at 1280x800. Any one else have this problem?

 

Can't wait until your review.

 

I've had my W5A for a week. It's been good so far. But I've started getting this wcourier.exe error too. IF anyone knows what this is could you help us out? Thanks.

 

Oh I forgot to mention. I left my laptop (plugged in) last night downloading something and this morning it was off. I tried turnin it back on but the on off button didn't work (althought it was glowing) I finally had to remove the battery and put it back it. Has anyone else had this issue too? The wcourier.exe error occured first thought (earlier yesterday).