Zenbook U500 Announced: 15.6" HD IPS, GT650M, Quad-Core i7...

I want as a counterpoint again say I am on my first machine and have no problems except software ones _not_ specific to this model (Windows 8 related). As out of the box the noise level wasn't a problem at idle and IMHO the new BIOS is a bit more silent however that can be placebo. The build quality is very good, comparable with HP Elitebooks and ... well I like it very much.

I had no problem with installing the 204 BIOS linked by Quindor above and the computer booted as normal after the install.

 

After working with the laptop for a day and now listening to it in a quiet environment I also think the 204 version makes the fans a bit more silent, but not deadly silent (turned off) like we wanted to see.

Also, coming back from standby now keeps the fans off for a few seconds and then you hear them spinning up slowly. So I'd call the 204 version an incremental improvement but we aren't there yet in my opinion.

Also, I'd like to ask everyone who downloaded my upload of it to create a support call with Asus to get this problem worked on. I will report back that this version is better, just not great yet. But with people downloading and not making a support case, our wishes will not reach Asus.... so spend some time and create a case!

 

Before any of you guys who are on the fence about keeping this laptop decide to create a support call with ASUS, I want to warn you guys that they may register your laptop's serial number to your name. I was made aware from my first order with XoticPC, that I either would not be able to return the computer if it was registered, or I would be charged a fee if I did have the laptop returned. So depending on what the return policy is from where you ordered it, you may not want to create a case just yet.

 

I'll take any converter that will allow me to install a halfway decent SSD in this laptop. Does full SATA really fit though? Kind of doubtful about that, but anyway I'm not picky.

With regard to fan noise: I'm all for continuing a support case on this. I'll try and do a before & after Sound Meter test when I apply the update. Tomorrow evening I expect...

 

Where can we file a support case? I can't place a call and there is no ASUS office in my country.

Also, how do I find out if my BIOS is A or not A version? Where do you guys check this out?

 

I did some noise measuring before and after 204 BIOS update with two different apps on my galaxy nexus.

The phone was placed in various directions below the screen and on the touchpad. The decibel values are most probably inaccurate but should give an idea if there was any noise reduction in this BIOS update.

Excel document: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4480781/BIOS_203-204_noise_diff.xlsx

Conclusion: There is no major difference in ambient noise, unfortunately. There is however some improvement with approximately -3dB in noise levels.

 

Go into BIOS and press F12. In the lower right corner you will now see your model number. Most likely it's UX51VZA. Even if you try to flash the wrong BIOS WinFlash will not let you flash it.

 

Are these the noise levels when the laptop is IDLE? 66 decibels is isane! I've got an age old dell inspiron 1546 so as you can imagine, I'm in dire need of a new machine and I noticed that my fans are usually always on when the laptop is idle. I have a HTC one X and using the sound meter app, I get 40db just ontop of the fan, which I find is too loud.

 

I should probably add that I let the phone lie on top of the vibrating laptop, so the values are definitely not accurate. They are also as close to the fan as you get. On top of that, both my different apps on the same phone produces very different values.

 

I really hope something great shows up at CSE. Every laptop I look at now seems to have a fatal flaw.

 

Exactly my feelings at this point in time.

 

? Why are you telling me this?

 

Misquoted, was supposed to be quoting Jorram.

 

What's the point of measuring sound level with phone laying on a vibrating surface? You should measure it holding your phone in your hand at a costant distance (e.g 10-15 cm)

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Seems like I did an epic fail here. Let's see if I get the time to do this test again without the phone laying on the surface.

 

Thank you very much for your time and willingness

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Total spin down isn't a good goal. This is a very powerful computer in a compact chassis so a total spin down would mean a on-off pulsating fan and higher component temperatures.
If total silence is the goal you'll probably never get it as I have never had a computer with comparable components (for their generation) that does a total spin down.

Even if I don't agree with the goal the current tweaked fan control is a bit more silent _but_ also causes an IMHO more irritating sound almost canceling the improvement. Let's hope Asus engineers have enough pride in their product to fix this.

 

What I wonder is that if we make a good profile for Notebook Fan Control application, could we get such good control over the fans so that we can reduce them to maybe 50% of what they do at idle today? I looked into the documentation of that application yesterday and the creator wrote a guide on how to analyze the EC so that you can create a perfect profile for your laptop. The idea was to analyze different offset bits in the EC chip while giving the laptop 100% load - by then you should detect both a read and a write field that controls the fan speed. this was very hard to find though in my short test.

 

I used the Sound Meter app on my phone yesterday. It was showing significant ambient noise (40 db) and not much more than that with the UX51 in high-performance battery setting under light load. And I can definitely hear the fan running (I am using 203 bios) if I am listening for it, so I am unsure how much emphasis I would place on the sound meter. I think it's the sound is rather low, but the pitch of the sound is the annoying part.

I downloaded the 204 bios but have not installed it. Is it safe to say that enough of us have flashed it safely?

 

The BIOS update to 204 went flawlessly for me, and I also read that another use updated without any issues.

Can you please measure the noise before and after the BIOS update, and compare them? Dont do my mistake and let the phone lie on the laptop surface, measure it like 5 cm above the keyboard/screen hinge.

Thanks!

 

I'm outta here, shipped my UX51VZ back to amazon and bought the MBP Retina. Gl in the future with this notebook - really hope for you guys it will be fixed as I see no chance that someone is able to enjoy this airplane notebook otherwise.

 

At this point, one might start to appreciate why Apple engineers had to spend their time and effort to have specially designed fans for their beast of a machine. They call it 'reducing tonal impact'. This just proves that this a real problem and requires ingenuity - from a hardware perspective - on the part of the laptop vendors.

BIOS updates sadly might not be the solution. No vendor would outright release a BIOS version which could risk delicate parts of the laptop getting toasted just to alleviate a 'non-issue' like fan noise.

 

I'm enjoying my computer now and have been enjoying it since it was delivered. Only in a silent room (like at night) is the fan noise obvious so no, it's not even close to airplane sounds. It's even acceptable when gaming with a significantly lower noise at load than my previous Vaio SA.

 

Ok, I just applied the 204 BIOS.

It does reduce the noise. I took measurements with the Sound Meter app that I used before when I first got the notebook. I held the phone ~10 cm above the keyboard and the laptop was in battery mode. I measured the noise at the Windows (7) desktop, idling some minutes after boot. Recordings were fairly stable.

203 BIOS: 35 dB (min 34 max 36)

204 BIOS: 30-31 dB (min 29 max 32)

That is a substantial improvement. The fans remain clearly audible, as before, however, so I also would like to see further improvements still.

 

The same here. About 5dB less. One step in the right direction :thumbsup:

 

Ok I went and flashed to the 204 bios. Definitely an improvement, but still can do better.

Here are my results:

Ambient with computer on sleep: 36 dB

203 (close) - 40 dB
203 (keyboard) - 45 dB

204 (close) - 39 dB
204 (keyboard) - 42 dB


Close meaning that the phone was about 6 inches away from the computer:

 

Hi guys,

I also want to install the new bios for some tests but where do you get this from? I only found the wrong one on the Asus page which can't be installed on my machine? Did you install one uploaded by another user? So...this one?

 

Yes, the one shared by Quindor. Asus TSD apparently forgot about me and the BIOS update they promised. Another feather on their cap.

Note: For users not on Windows 8 / UEFI anymore, note that you have to re-disable Secure Boot Control, and then re-enable CSM.

 

I installed the bios also and the noise is definitely lower. Hope it is possible to turn off the fan completely by software now but I would not expect that. Maybe the speed-ups are also more silent now which happen every now and then if you deactivate the fan manually then. Sadly Asus Support also forgot about me. I hope you guys who are in direct touch with them make it clear to them that there is NO NEED to run the fans if the CPU core temps stay below ~55°C....it is just useless!

 

Í wish i get update too! I have a bios-version A (UX51VZA.203) and i got an email today from Asus. They don't know when the bios-update is comming for A-bios. !? They have bios-updates for the other one, but they don't update the A-bios!? They have even older bios on their webpages than i have on this computer - this is from 13th. september. Makes me wonder the quality of the customer service - they do answer quickly, but they need also to do something than only give answers!

However, I love this laptop. The screen is sharp, althought there is some lightleaking on the bottom and on the left, but it isn't visible in normal use - only against dark/black screen it is abit annoying.

Fan noise isn't acceptable anyway for a laptop on this price, imho! For 1799 euros i expect to get some quality not a wind motor. I had to disable gpu to get the noise lower abit and i wonder why gpu has fan spinning even when the gpu isn't used. I still wonder why fans are spinning althought the temperature is lower than 50 °C. (CPU thermometer 41,41,41,41 and SpeedFan 48, 46,48,48 - not sure do those programs work properly at all.)

 

Anyone noticing their keyboard backlights going on and off randomly after the bios update? It almost seems like it has something to do with my wireless mouse.

 

Same happened with me. For some reason updating the BIOS turns the auto-brightness function back on. Just turn if off and you'll be fine.

On a slightly more worrying note, since updating the BIOS I can no longer access it! I push F2 at launch but it just continues to boot to windows. Anyone have this happen to them and if so, how do I fix it?

 

Are you using the UEFI boot function? If so you need to restart through the menu in windows telling it you want access to the bios.

 

I was able to still access my bios after 204.

I also saw my keyboard backlight going on and off too, though it has happened . I have a bluetooth Razer Orochi.

 

I have not noticed any backlight issues. Automatically comes on when dark and gets brighter en less bright when needed. Turns off automatically when there is enough light in the room. Screen brightness also responds correctly.

Please look up a post I made about this. Default the Intel driver and the laptop work against each other instead of with each other. I also explained how to fix this and get correctly functioning and logical automatic brightness and keyboard lighting.

For me at least, behavior did not change since 204. I also have a bluetooth mouse connected.

 

Edit: Nvm, being stupid!

 

I also am on my first laptop and have never thought the fans were an issue. I also did the 204 update (without any problems) and think it's reduced fan speed and the noise is reduced, too. It's pretty much silent for me now. I can't imagine anyone saying that their ears are ringing... absolute nonsense. If it's that loud, you have a faulty machine, fer crissakes!

I'm pleased with this laptop and continue to believe it's one of the only competitors to the Macbook Pro Retina, which this laptop replaced for me.

Or click WIndows-X keys from desktop, select Run. Enter msinfo32 and Ok. You;ll get to your System Information where you can see your BIOS Version/Date.

 

Indeed, mine is quiet as hell and I believe more quiet with the new bios. I also feel like startup is faster but never timed it before. I have a 5 second startup from full shutdown.

It also lasted over 5 hours yesterday with screen brightness almost full.

This laptop is just awesome! No complaints whatsoever. The fans do stay on but honestly this is probably better for me since its always on my lap.

 

Yes there are like 10 different areas that have brightness control. Very, very annoying. I'll search for your post in a bit. There's the button on the keyboard FN -A to disable, then in the intel settings, and then power settings.

Right now the only thing I can't seem to figure out how to turn off is the dimming on dark webpages. When I click this for example:

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/j...ttp://mit.zenfs.com/645/2012/12/life_book.jpg

It dims my screen.

 

Hearing thresholds vary a lot from person to person. If you are, say, 50+ years of age, your hearing will be substantially worse than that of younger adults. This is a much more likely explanation for the variance in the reports here.

In any case, my fans aren't rattling/broken, and my ears were ringing after some hours with the 203 BIOS, I'm not making that up. I'll see how I experience the 204 version after spending extended time on it.

 

I think there is an even more likely explanation.

Most laptop manufacturers have at least two suppliers for every part. For example, my E6400 could have LG or Samsung screens, WD or Seagate hard drives, etc. It's perfectly plausible that ASUS has two suppliers for the fans, and one of those suppliers makes noisier fans.

 

Lets compare fans then. Mine are quiet as hell and I'm 35 n just had a hearing test a few months ago with no loss.

Really why would you not have sent your laptop right back if it was that loud?

 

Are there any moderators that can combine the 2 ux51vz threads? Or can we just close one?

 

As far as we know, though, all the fans are of a specific Delta type that was identified here some time ago. There is also no other report of component variation in the U500's that have been sold to date (e.g., the 256GB models all have the Sandisk SSDs). Of course, we'd have certainty only when we'd actually identify our own fans individually... have to admit I'm not ready to open my laptop for that though.

What I find surprising is that a minority of people here is furiously arguing that there is no issue with noise. Surely you would not have a problem if the laptop magically became 100% silent (and not overheat)? So why not just support this effort aimed at improving something that can only make the laptop better? Heck, you wouldn't even have to flash the BIOS if you somehow preferred to have a noisy laptop...

 

Is WinFlash the safest method to replace the BIOS with the 204 version? Is it possible to go back afterwards? It is still unofficial, after all

 

You're assuming that the majority of owners are unhappy. People don't buy one and then join forums to tell everyone how happy they are with it. People mostly come to Notebookreviews to complain about hardware/software problems and look for solutions. This thread is no exception. But it is not reflective of customer satisfaction.

I'm 41 with pretty good hearing and it's still not an issue for me. That said, I've emailed ASUS about the fans and exaggerated about the noise levels just to help out. I'm a techie and am always looking for improvements, which is why the first thing I did was upgrade to 12 GB RAM. Did it help? Probably nothing that I could detect but I like to max out performance.

I used WinFlash. Don't know if you can revert back to a previous version.

 

No, the fan noise isn't terrible, it really, really isn't. It's just that this computer is in the premium category and satisfies in most other areas (unless you have QC issues) but part of being a premium product is having a well designed cooling system. In my tests, the fan noise is 4 dB louder than my ambient.

So yes, the fan noise is not terrible, but it's there.

 

No, I did not make that assumption. I said "a minority of people here" is apparently totally fine with the noise. I do believe the majority of owners, and ex-owners (lol) here is not so happy with it. Just wanted to clear that up.

About flashing the BIOS: I think it is safest to use the 'onboard' BIOS Easyflash tool, with the BIOS update on a USB stick. WinFlash may work fine, but at least in the past it has let people down; there are some warnings about that here on the forum.

 

78% sRGB ? Is this really so? Then it would be impossible to work with photo editing. Should it be 78% aRGB ??? The gamut could not be so bad as 78% sRGB on a IPS. Or could it?

 

I'm in my 30ies, am sensitive to noise and have excellent hearing up to 20kHz. My machine only have a noticeable sound in very silent environments and only irritating at night. The idle sound is approximately as loud as a whisper.
Someone that compares the noise of this computer to an airplane is either delirious or (as I have previously assumed) have a faulty machine.

I would return it ASAP. Not even when gaming could the noise of my machine cause ringing ears.

Edit: as a semi-audiophile I use open to semi-open headphones depending on use case and have the volume approximately the same level as normal speech (in order to preserve my hearing) and isn't disturbed by the idle noise. When gaming the volume is increased somewhat but the fan noise is still not at an disturbing level.