small w7j review

hope yours works!.. I'd try just Setup check first.. I put it on Always so i'm screwed!

 

Ok, thanks for testing.. Maybe I hit a key wrong or something, but I don't see how I could've done it twice wrong

 

is there a jumper to reset it?

 

no jumpers on laptops.. at least no laptops that I know of? It's for higher security since they can be easily stolen...

Did you use caps/lower case in your password mixed?.. my HDD one works and I didnt use caps, but I used caps in the Bios one..

 

all lower case.

 

hey, just flash your bios in windows. would work.

 

I cant get in windows.. I cant even turn on the laptop.
Anyway I called Asus and it looks like they have a master password but they wont give it to me unless I fax a receipt with all the info on it.. and the receipt I got I dont think has the Serial # on it.. but I'm 3 hours away from home so I cant even check.

 

hey thx linsook for the test....hows 12% brightness....im guessing its fine for indoor use otherwise u wouldnt have used it

 

Brightness at 17%? That's not a test, that's torture!!!

 

I use mine at 25% brightness with no problems. At 50% it's bright, and I don't like going over 75%, too bright for me. On the lowest setting half the screen is bright and half is dark, and one up from that it's still quite dark.

Now if only I could boot it up again

 

was alright for me with proper day light.

 

Asus doesn't have a master bios password set on any of their systems..... never have and never will. However, what they're asking for is your receipt, along with your serial number, and any other important information. I know we list serial numbers of the systems we ship out, just for customer reference, but it certainly isn't common practice.

 

haha ya at the lowest setting half the screen is viewable the other is barely.. i was wondering why that was too.. but its not an important issue as no one would ever use it that low anyways. vcut technology at its best?

 

OMG! I have it cranked up to 100% ALL the time!

 

doesnt hurt your eyes?

 

JDKBX I just purchased the W7J with the same specs as yours but WIFI and BLUETOOTH are not functioning properly under Linux to connect. Experienced Linux user!! Tried Suse 10 linux and Ubuntu 6 dual boot. Do yours work under Linux? Also have been reading there are overheating issues on other brand notebooks with Dual Core & GEFORCE GO. Notice anything? Thanks.

 

Which Linux? Does your WIFI and BLUETOOTH work under Linux? I have exactly same model as you but these don't work under Suse 10, Ubuntu 6. Don't know how to configure though am experienced Linux user. My Toshiba no problem . Also any overheating under Linux? I heard other brands with same Dual and GEFORCE are having overheating issues under Linux.

 

well im using gentoo. that means i basically do everything myself by hand, when it comes to configuring things.
here you find the right device drivers.
otherwise i had no issues with heat.

 

can anyone comment on the glare/reflection the screen has if taken outside?

 

here are some benchmarks. none of the settings were changed. programs just installed and ran.

Super Pi @ 2 million: 1m 18s

3DMark05: 1965

3DMark06: 822

CPU 48° celcius, HD 43° celcius - heat out of the vent around 48° celcius.

 

SIGH.

Still a tough decision between the W3J, W7J and the Sony SZ23GP!

>_<

I'm still a little apprehensive about getting the W7J because of the battery life... =/

 

Battery life on the W7 should only make you apprehensive if you're looking at a notebook with some crazy, big battery...... If it's bothering you that one comes with a 6 cell and the other with an 8 cell, then..... you should be reminded you could get a 9 cell for the W7 if that isn't enough for you, but the 6 cell is going to be smaller and lighter and the system on a whole is lighter...... BUT, there's more battery options for you. If you don't like the battery life, honestly, you shouldn't be getting a tiny powerhouse like this because it's a fact of life..... I mean, until we start to see fuel cells being put into notebooks, don't expect life to get much better. The life is excellent for the battery size and the performance of the notebook.....

 

Justin other than a GPU this isnt much different from a W5F. they should have gone the sony route using two gpus intel and nvidia. an extra 3.5 hours of battery life would have put the doubts to rest. Hey justin can you do me a favor can you weigh the w7 with a w5f 9cell i though they dont fit but just to see how much the weight is with it. because im very close to buying a w7 but i want an accurate weight with the 9 cell.

 

Cost and size..... you can sum that up right there... but the gpu isn't using that much more power than the intel when it's not being pushed..... you have see the ultilities nvidia and ati are using now, right? Like ati's powerplay - when on battery.... such and such an action...... I really don't see doubling the life being possible going that route..... realistically.

I really don't have time today to take and weigh it, but you could take the stock weight of the W7 with the 6 cell and consider that for every 3 cells, the battery weighs about a pound....... which would makes the 9 cell about 1/2 pound heavier than the 6... bringing it up to about 4.8 pounds... but it's certainly under 5, which is awfully important, because the W3, with a standard 8 cell comes in at 5.4.

 

caracal, you mentioned a minor fan issue where when you moved the laptop and the fan would make a sound. I now know what youre talking about. but for me to replicate it, i have to shake it quite hard or plop it down on the table little more than lightly.

 

linsook: I noticed that you got just under 3 hours with the 6 cell with wi-fi on. Could you please run the same test with wi-fi turned off? If you can't/don't want to, could you give me your best educated estimate.

Also, does the web-cam rotate 180 degrees like it does on the W5f ?

Has anyone here successfully undervolted the gpu yet? Has that changed temp or battery life at all significantly?

Thanks much!

(Either the W3J, W7J or Z35f from me soooooon)

 

For me it happens even on what I would consider lightly.. say if you put it on your bed then lie down a bit more than lightly.. ... I'm afraid it will do same having it on your lap in a car and going over a bump.. or maybe tubulence in a plane

Anyway Asus support still hasn't got the backdoor password to my BIOS. First they needed the receipt, called today and they just decided to give me the password when I asked them to call MilestonePC.. it seems they don't want to waste any time calling anybody. The first guy didn't even want to speak with me.. he said call back later, but then I asked him to call me back, and then he started looking into the situation.

So they decided to give me the password except that they don't have it!! They said they'll e-mail Taiwan, which will e-mail them back, and they will e-mail me... I wonder how long that will take.. sucks having my laptop as a paperweight.

Rambam: The webcam doesn't move at all.. unless you turn the screen. I'd love to try undervoling as soon as Asus gives me my bios pass..

 

so is there any reason why the bios crapped?

 

somehow he locked himself out of the system with BIOS password. Either software problem or he managed to make the same typo twice when setting the password.

 

let's hope it's not a software problem, might be a bit of a deterrent to purchase this one.

 

good thing the other guy tested BIOS password for him and it worked perfectly fine on his machine. So either he's really good at misstyping consistantly or he got a lemon.

 

You think that will be out around the time Merom is released

 

I have had the A7j (1.8 dual) for a week. Live in China often use Starbucks WIFI. A couple of observations. Very nice notebook. This case is made of some kind of alloy not plastic. The vent is on right side- not ideal for us right handers. But I use Bluetooth mouse so ok. Keyboard gets a little heated sometimes (standard for laptops) Usually runs fairly cool except when download manager is reassembling large DVD files. Won"t continue dual boot since I have the bad news about Linux on these dual core machines. Very happy mostly about this laptop.Keys are right size for me. Stylish, lightweight. I looked at Sony SZ and did not like the keys or case so this was cheaper and more suitable. I don't find it to be particularly fast compared to a good desktop machine. Plan to upgrade Ram soon.

 

Correction I have W7j. sorry

 

How much ram did you get it with? 1Gb standard?

i thought the W7J came with only 1 free Ram slot. the other having a 512 incorporated ram, that could not be removed.

So if you upgrade to like... 1.5Gb of ram, will that be slower then keeping the 2x512Mb in Dual Channel?

 

Dual Channel is very over-rated, more memory is better then less running in dual channel.

 

Ok, I'm back in my W7J.. Asus e-mailed me the password from Taiwan. It took less than a day once they decided to give it to me. The backdoor password changes based on the system date and every day it's a different password, so I didn't have enough time to leave the current password on and try to read it and see if I had mistyped it.. but I set it again and it works now

 

wow... the changing backdoor password is crazy secure.

 

How is the thickness of the laptop? I see the thickness varies from 1.142"~1.453". Is the notebook thicker at the back or something?

 

Its thinner in some places than others,but is pretty even..

I just tried RMClock to see if I can get more battery life ... it seems that running RMClock itself is enough CPU usage to lower battery time.. The slowest discharge rate I get is when I have no management set up.

The power program that comes with the laptop doesnt seem to take additional CPU, but all it can do is limit the max CPU usage.. when the CPU is idle it uses the same amount of battery whether the program is running or not though. If RMClock is running with a profile then it uses even more battery just idling.

So the best discharge time is just letting it do it's own thing.. I thought RMClock was supposed to help out... it seems that the only thing both of these programs can do is put a CPU max load turning your 1.8ghz into 300mhz... :| saves battery but everything runs super slow.

 

carcal_to, have you tried undervolting/clocking the graphics card? I have a feeling that that is what is chewing up the battery life. As of right now (with just the power4gear software throttling your cpu) what is the best battery life you can manage with wi-fi on, bluetooth off, surfing the web and some wordprocessing (typical University scenario) ?

 

How would you go about undervolting/clocking the graphics card? I'm ordering my W7J soon and plan on doing exactly that if possible. Thanks.

 

So would you recommend to upgrade the ram from 1gb to 1.5gb's?

 

Nvidia GPU's have PowerMizer which already does this for you. The default settings should already have the GPU clock down on battery. You can play around with the settings in the video card driver settings. The W7J would probably only get 2 hours if the GPU wasn't on power conserve mode and much less if actually pushing the GPU.

 

I tried underclocking with Powerstrip but it doesn't do anything.
Also turning on/off wireless doesn't do anything either.

So far the lowest battery usage I could get is 18500mWh, the total it goes to is 51626mWh.. so if you just let it idle, you'd get 2.8 hours. I can get it to go down to 17000mWh, but that's at the lowest(next to lowest because lowest you can't see anything) screen brightness setting which is not bright enough for me. It is still workable but just way dim.

My RMClock was screwed up it wasnt taking too much CPU, it had the voltages set all wrong for some reason. I fixed it and it's ok now.. it can throttle the CPU pretty good and save quite some battery.. surfing the web/word processors would make the battery usage jump around 21000mWh with RMClock throttling.. without you can go up to 30000mWh pretty easily.

So if you want some brightness(4th level), 2.8 hours, Linsook had it on 2nd level and got almost 3 hours..

I can't see anything else that can be done to lower the usage...so it looks like around 2.5 hours with constant surfing and around 2.8 with word processing/mostly idle.

I put the powermizer for the Nvidia driver at battery savings, it was on maximum performance.. almost no difference on the battery load.

 

I just checked the temps on the palmrests and thought I'd share..
The left side is cooler than the right.. I was able to get about 33 degrees on the left side and 37 degrees on the right side.. this is with very mild usage, just typing/downloading at slow speed.

The hard drive is right under the right palmrest, this is why it gets warmer than the left. the CPU is also just above the hard drive..

 

There's a backdoor BIOS password?

 

This discussion has been very helpful in making my decision, hats off to all those contributing. I have one final concern regarding this notebook. Has anyone registered the notebook through ASUS? If so, does the website offer any sort of replacement/extended warranty plan? The place I am planning to purchase this notebook from is asking a crazy $350 for a 2 yr extended warranty plan. I know ASUS has an extended warranty plan for people outside North America which is currently unavailable for those located in the North American region. I am purchasing this notebook for my brother, who is going off to college next month. I am sure that it will receive its good amount of abuse and would like to have it warranted for a good 2 yrs. If anyone has any input on this, please let me know. Also, did any of you who own the notebook find the volume knob annoying? It seems ages since ive seen a volume knob on a notebook. Thanks again for your anticipated response.

 

I think the volume knob is more like a momentary two-way switch.

 

Thanks very much.