a8jp concerns

I just recieved my A8JP in the mail via Newegg, but I have a few problems on start up and I need to find out if they are normal or a problem.

My biggest gripe is the mouse, the left click buttom seems extremely hard to press down, the right one is louder and makes an easy tap and louder sound if that makes sense whatsoever. Also the scroll button seems to be very hard to get it to activate when using the touch pad.

Other gripe is the screen, kind of has a grey griddyness look to the screen, especially on white surfices, totally different than my macbook. I don't know if this is what you call sparkles, or whatever else. I saw the post about bios updates helping other models with what seems like is the same issue, but im not sure. Anyways, I appriciate the help.

Again my biggest gripe is the touchpad and the hard left click button, I guess I can learn to just tap the pad ;p

 

I have an A8JP for 2 months. Try the following

After installing the drivers for the touchpad, go to the settings and adjust the sensitivity for the lightest. This can help in the side scroll (although my touchpad still feel sticky). The left and right mouse button should "wear in" after usage.

As for the screen, i am also curious. Is it a manufacturing defect or is it normal?

 

The graininess issue with Asus laptop screens were fixed in a variety of BIOS releases, thanks in part to feedback from numerous NBR members including myself, and several Asus reseller representatives including Ken from Gentech PC. You should look around for an A8Jp BIOS update.

 

Perhaps there is some sort of dust/material at the bottom of the left mouse clicker, making it hard to use? Canned air or a good shake(with notebook off) may fix it.

 

i recently got my laptop from newegg too
i also have the grainy issue, very noticeable in white background
i updated bios to latest 208 and still same problem...

i guess ill just live with it, doesnt harm me...

 

OK good info on grainyness, but about my other problem

my left mouse button isn't just hard to press, it doesn't seem to "click" like the right mouse button.. in fact it doesn't really make a clicking sound at all, well not much of one compared to how loud the right is. you have to press much harder than the right side for it to actually press.

I want to RMA it, but newegg won't let me even though I just recieved it today... I'm kind of worried to because my screen has no dead pixels and the rest seems to work good...

 

Strangely enough, my A8Js seems to have the exact same touchpad, since the left button doesn't make as loud of a clicking sound. It could be part of the design, although it's most likely an issue with the touchpads used in the A8J series. Personally, I find that it still works, although I usually use a mouse anyways.

 

I'm having the same issue and bought my a8jp from NewEgg. Don't bother RMAing to newegg because they will just send the computer to Asus for diagnostics/repairs (according to the Newegg person I talked to at least). If you want to RMA just contact Asus.

I strongly urge those of you with the screen issue to email Asus and pester them to fix it. I've sent them a number of emails about this. There is no BIOS fix for the a8jp yet (i've looked hard) but thats probably because not as many people have this model. Look here

Regarding the touchpad, I was a bit alarmed by it at first too but it seems that it is already starting to loosen up after a few days.

 

That makes me feel a little bit better knowing that someone else's touchpad is doing the same thing. it just feels alot harder to press, ya know? I talked for an hour with a newegg rep argueing with them about this since their policy says that they have a 30 day replacement policy for defective items, and I considered this defective. I have never got such bad service from newegg, they have always been very good to me. They must REALLY not want these back.

You think I need to live with the touch pad then? I mean, I guess I could learn to be a touchpad tapper instead of a clicker ;p

 

I agree. I don't bother RMAing it because I'm afraid that I will receive it in a more worse condition than before.

But I'm really looking forward for an update to fix the grainy issue in A8JP.
PM me if you found a fix !! =]

 

There may not be a fix if they don't get enough complaints, so I strongly recommend that you tell them about the issue and ask if there is a beta BIOS you could try or something.

 

I just tried calling about the grainyness, they did not have any beta bioses to try, and the guy did not know that the issue existed with the x1700 - however he was familiar with it from the x1600. I asked him to kindly pass on the information and to check on beta bios's that might be coming soon, hes going to get back with me, who knows...

 

not to poo on ur thread but i think people complaining so much about small issues concerning the touchpad is a bit much. i believe it is harder than other touchpads to leftclick because it does require more force to push. i found this a bit annoying but RMAing it or complaining that it's a defect is far fetched. i just feel like this was a bargain as it is and people always expect everything to their own standards instead of having realistic expectations.

a8jp is a great notebook imo. you can change the sensitivity for the touchpad so that you can tap instead of clicking the left button. i find that easier to do anyway. or just use a portable mouse

 

Well, its not that I was being picky, well I guess I am sort of picky when I spend 1300$, but I didn't realise that it seems to be a common problem, however I still don't know if everyone else's are as bad as mine... Also, has anyone else noticed that the case's plastic scratches easy? I'm noticing little knicks and scratches on the silver finish the day after I got it, and I have been rough with it or anything, and only carried it around in the case.
Must just be cheap plastic ;p

 

I also have a few issues with my A8JP. If I knew these before hand, I would not have bought it.
- cover easily scratched. It looks horrible now.
- screen issue (as mentioned earlier).
- short battery life (about 1 hour only typing Word document)
- network port doesn't work with Unwired (Australian company). I had to buy a wireless router to circumvent this. Weird problem.
- annoying software. The Asus media software keeps popping up when my machine resumes from Sleep mode.

Not very happy overall.

 

Huh! I just realized I never use the left click on the touchpad, I always just tap. It's pretty stiff. Harder to press than the right click, which I use every once in a while. I love the touchpad on this thing. Very smooth and accurate. I've been forced to deal with many worse over the years by my employer. Dell and IBM make the worst touchpads ever.

Case plastic scratches: get one of those clear vinyl covers for it on ebay or cut a cover yourself out of Xpel film. No more scratch problem and double the armor class. Also, get a Palm pilot screen protector and cover the touchpad with it. Makes it much nicer to drag your finger across in addition to protecting the surface.

battery life: dump power4gear. It's a nice program theoretically, but it doesn't work. I've been surfing for 3.5 hours on the battery this evening. No, I'm not making that up. I'm using NHC with a few custom settings and Windows power management.

Annoying software: don't run it, no one's forcing you. The laptop runs fine in XP with nothing else loaded but drivers.

 

I've bought the A8JP for a week and it also exhibited the same characteristic for the touchpad buttons.

However, I refunded the laptop not because of the touchpad but the LCD had flickers.

I bought W7J and quite happy with it despite it's short lived battery.

 

Hello everyone -- I also just purchased the AJ8P from NewEgg, and am very happy with it. Regarding the touchpad -- the mouse buttons do feel different, require more force than usual to press the buttons, and the slider is a bit annoying to deal with, but I'm figuring I'll get used to it -- never a big fan of touchpads, anyway, I'll just carry around a mouse in the bag.

No issues with the case plastic so far, although admittedly I'm treating it like a baby. The screen also looks OK to me -- it's actually not easy to find a 14" LCD with a 1440x900 resolution, so that was a big plus for me. I don't see any graininess. Hmm.

The one concern I had out of the box was the excessive flex in the keyboard, especially on the left hand side by the CapsLock button. I thought about RMAing it , but have decided to hold on to it for now. The important thing is that all the keys work fine, and I'm having too much fun with it right now. I'll RMA it when something actually breaks

Overall, very very satisfied. I understand that I'm getting what I'm paying for. While I knew coming in I wasn't getting supreme build quality (I read here that the A8 line is the ASUS budget line), so things like the touchpad and keyboard flex don't really bother me all that much. To get a X1700 class video card and Core 2 Duo in a 14" package for $1300 is amazing. Excellent bang for the buck, imo.

 

how are you only getting 1 hour of battery life? what are your settings for brightness, wifi on/off, bluetooth on/off, sound, and what other programs do you have running. I get at least 2.5 hours with wifi, bluetooth, sound off and brightness on at two fn clicks above the lowest setting. since this laptop has a dedicated video card it sucks up battery life so it's not as ultra portable. it's a sacrifice of one or the other.

not sure what screen issues u are referring to (maybe the flicker?) but that sounds like a defect.

as for the software i found that formatting to get rid of startup programs and other unnecessary ones is effective. i believe you have to do that with most computers when u first get them anyway because i'm very selective of what i want running.

 

I am a bit time poor and tend to use the notebook straight out of the box.
Long battery life on its own is not that important to me. It's the whole package.

When I watch dvds on the screen, some scenes look a bit aweful. The yellow/orange colours look smudged. Apart from watching dvds, there are no problems with the screen.

The annoying software I refer to is the Asus Media Manager, or something like that. I don't mind it remains on my notebook. The problem is everything I turn on my pc from Sleep mode, Asus automatically loads this program for me.
So I un-installed it. Now Asus automatically loads the Asus Dvd player instead. I don't want to un-install that too. It's very annoying.
Does anybody knows how to fix this problem? That is, don't load up the media software automatically on startup or on "resume" from sleep.

As for other minor issues, there's no point for me to ramble about it.
Thanks.

 

Honestly, compared to other notebooks the a8 series does not scratch that easily. The white macbooks will scratch if you look at them the wrong way.

Regarding the keyboard and screen, if it is that bad of an issue call Asus and make an RMA request. I sent in my a8jp last week because of the screen issue, and although I have yet to get it back, from what I was told the technicians are now done with it and they did notice and try to fix the screen by replacing parts. I'll update when it arrives tomorrow or friday.

 

Fixing this prob, can take like ten mins. Go to Start | Run and type in "msconfig" (no quotes).

Tell it to disable all startup items. Alternatively, you can leave selected items checked and uncheck those which you do not wish to start. If you uncheck everything, then you may have some issues with bluetooth and wireless. You may also lose the functionality of a button or two as well, but test it out, restart, and if everything works to your satisfaction, then you fixed the problems. Otherwise you know where to go back to.

It's better to try to disable services using services.msc first if the problems that you have load up there, but you won't likely want to go to the root of it. I would just disable everything using msconfig. It's really easy, and generally harmless. If you have issues, you can always just recheck.


Yeah, I feel like people are definitely nitpicking a bit though. It's an inexpensive laptop with incredible specs. The touchpad is terrible (perhaps, why they included a crappy mouse too!) Still, it's much better quality than nearly any other manufacturer's machine at this price, and scratches give it character. Put a sticker on it or something.

The two sticks ram (at 512mb each) are a shame though as that lessens the value should you choose to upgrade.

 

Today my a8jp arrived back to me. Asus noticed the graininess issue and replaced the screen, but the new screen looks the same. I guess its just how this type of LCD is and I'll get used to it. Maybe a BIOS update will fix it but I don't know.