A8JP Owners Lounge

Looks like we have a rare NB (in North America at least). I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing

 

its back in stock

What newegg is doing is marketing. They are removing it to try and get people to buy the a8jm or the a8js or the a8jr.
And Im sure its working

 

oh man, I think newegg is trying to mess with me, its back in stock now but its more expensive then before, dont know if i should wait or risk it being out of stock again, agrrrrrrrr.........ahhh

 

I think you shouldn't buy A8JP becuase it build by cheap plastic material, i believe many users of A8Jx are not really happy with the quality of that product, but guess what, it is what you paid what you get!

 

Yes, it's rare in North America.

No, it's not necessarily marketing. Even back in October NewEgg would run out because they only receive small shipments of the A8Jp. Could marketing be a part of it? Sure. But it's not a new tactic or some other evil development. NewEgg is the only reseller of this model in North America, so they order for what they can fill. When they run out, they order again. I understand that the A8Jp is at the end of it's lifecycle and is no longer being manufactured. Not positive about that - but have heard it from several different sources.

Cheaply built? I don't think so. It's more solidly built than other notebooks I've looked at. It's even taken a couple of falls without any damage or problems. Have people had problems? Sure. Just like with any other model by any other manufacturer. It's not Asus' top of the line, but if you did some research beforehand, you'd know that.

Is it made of plastic? You bet. But so are most of the other models.

It's quite a capable notebook for the price. Why the price has gone up though is mystifying. It had been holding steady at the same price for quite a long time.

 

A8J* aren't Thinkpad, but neither is Dell, HP, etc. Build quality is comparable to other mainstream notebooks. The two complaints that've been levelled on the A8 series across the board is the vertcal viewing angles (true) of the LCD and the hinges (a few complaints but hasn't been verified as a widespread problem). Otherwise there have been a lot of individual issues that can't be attributed to the overall build quality of the series.

I noticed the A8JP in particular takes a lot of flak, which is disheartening, but I have yet to experience any major issues *knocks on wood*

 

Wouldn't the x2300 perform less than the x1700? It would be an upgrade to the x1300, I would think.
JJ

 

gone again

 

So, I put Ubuntu on this weekend. Most of the drivers are installed by default, It picked up the wireless and video cards on first boot. I did have to tell Ubuntu to install the video drivers, but after that, it worked flawlessly.

 

Did you try Kubuntu? I was thinking of setting up dual booting with it and Vista ...

 

My LAN port is suddenly dead. It worked yesterday when I left work, now nothing. I've recrimped my cable and tried another known working one. Any ideas? Is this a user serviceable part?

Thanks

 

Nope, I used regular Ubuntu, though, I don't think there is much difference, other than the default startup environment, KDE vs Gnome

 

Did you try reinstalling the driver?
Can you ping the ip address associated with the network card?
Can you ping anything outside of the network card on your lan?

 

I removed it from device manager and let windows redetect it. It does not register a network cable being plugged in, so pinging or any of that sort of stuff will do no good.

Ok.. this makes no sense. I just unhooked the USB network adapter I bought yesterday and hooked the network cable into the onboard NIC. It works today. Makes absolutely no sense.

That makes me look like a liar, but it's true! Anyway.. hopefully it will continue working.

 

The USB network adapter is probably why...

 

I'm tired of people saying that the a8jp is built with cheap plastic. Honestly I think people here are being way too picky. In terms of hardware hands down this has to be the best bang for your buck. There are some design issues that could improve the overal quality of the laptop but they are mostly minor ones that dont detract from this great notebook. If i wanted mangesium alloy instead of plastic, I would have paid $200++ more for a different laptop with the same specs as a8jp.

and yes i am bias

 

Ya as far as the aluminum lid I plan on putting carbon fiber vinyl on mine. What the notebook manufactures charge for a aluminum lid is so much you can literally make one yourself.

 

If I uninstall WCE and install XP Pro... can I just finish the installation of Win XP Pro and begin using the notebook fine without installation of additional drivers/BIOS/other stuff? or do I need to do additional installing because I dont wanna deal with the bloatware that comes standard.

If I need to do additional installing, can i have links please

 

Several times Counter Strike Source has caused my A8JP to heat up so much it turned off and remained scorching hot for about 5 minutes. I was keeping it on my bed and after the second time I realized the fan vent is at an angle that will get almost completely blocked on anything but an even, hard surface. Just a warning to anyone else. The stickers on the bottom of the computer almost burned off.

 

Yup, laptops gotta breathe--and they can only breathe on hard surfaces where their legs can keep the fan vents elevated just enough to allow some ventilation.

 

Indeed, I ended up getting a wooden board roughly 1ft by 2ft to set my laptop and mouse on. Although I'm not generally moving it about other than to set it on my lap occasionally. It really helps out, for ventilation and keeping everything together.

 

I don't recall seeing anyone mention this in previous threads, but I've been having a bit of trouble when switching from an external monitor to the notebook LCD. For some reason, if I do not unhook the external monitor before I shut the laptop down, the next power on, the notebook LCD does not come on. I have to hook up an external monitor to see anything. I downloaded the Mobile Catalyst 7.4 drivers for the heck of it and they installed perfectly. I did not have any notifications of an incompatible video card or anything. I'm not sure if this will fix my problem, just letting you all know that 7.4 does work with the A8Jp (for me anyway).

 

does anyone know how to disable the sound when the ASUS logo appears on the screen during boot?

 

Go into the BIOS. It will be under an option called Speaker Volume (bad memory, but I think that's right)

 

i cannot remember for the life of me whats the key to press to boot to bios

 

It's either the Esc key or F2.

 

I hooked up my home theater speakers to the headphone out on the jp and it is noisy as all get-out. Unfortunately, I can't do digital, yet. Is there a way to lower the noise-floor (aside from turn the volume down, obviously).
JJ

 

A8JP can support 160gb hdd? i'm thinking to buy this one http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/momentus/momentus_7200.2/

and also if i change the hdd or ram myself would it void the warranty?

i'm also having problem with my bluetooth on Window Vista, it just said can't find my bluetooth adapter....i suspect is the driver issues, can't find any update on bluetooth at asus download page.... please help
cheers

 

i installed window vista business...my pc are very slow... how to make it more faster?

 

Does anyone that has Vista, have hard button keys (running man, and "s") functioning? Also, the music key opens Media Center... is there any way to remap these keys?

 

The noise with speakers is an issue. A search of the Asus forum should turn up discussions on it. I recall seeing some possible fixes for this. It's not an A8Jp issue - seems to be a problem with Asus (maybe all notebooks).

Changing the hard drive or adding RAM will not void the warranty. You might want to hold onto the originals so that you can put them back if you have to send it in for service.

As far as Vista slowing down the system, there are discussions about Vista and optimizing it in the Windows OS Forum.

I haven't heard of any way for remapping the shortcut keys (bluetooth, media, wireless).

 

sanpabloguy,

do you have the other two buttons functioning though? the one that looks like a running guy, and the one with an "S"?

 

my running guy and s button keys are functioning properly

all i did was run the update cd that came with my vista upgrade. if you lost it or don't have it, try the asus website for the latest drivers.

 

I have not installed Vista (and probably won't for some time). So Dark Dove's suggestion sounds good to me. You should have received the Vista upgrade CD and another CD with Asus' name on it. That will have the up-to-date drivers for Vista.

Alternatively, you can download the Vista drivers from Asus' support site.

 

I was wondering what the latest drivers were for the x1700 on this notebook. I have the one that the notebook came with. Is this the best one for it? Also, if it makes any difference, I have XP.

 

hmm, that's odd, I did install from the ASUS upgrade cd. I didn't install everything though, but when i look at what I didn't install, it doesn't look like it would have anything to do with the buttons.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1862534&postcount=211

Hello,

Wanted to give an update on this failure I was seeing. I sent my notebook into Asus.
All they did was update the hard drive firmware and change my config from Intel's wireless config to Microfoft's. I've never bothered to switch back to Intel's but I assume the drive firmware was the cause. Unfortunatly, the HDD FW isn't downloadable from their site.

-Jay

 

The window vista OS has been installed on my A8JP for about 2 months, i'm keep getting funny color screen (check the pic) just like BSOD but it is not bluescreen and my notebook become freeze and sometimes will automatically restart...can someone tell me what's going wrong? Should i send to Asus to repair?

 

Did this start happening in the past couple of weeks? Did it happen after a Windows Update?

If so, check the info/links in This Message.

If it's not related to that WU problem, I'd RMA it to Asus.

 

Yeah i updated my window couple weeks ago...

i clicked on the link u gave me it works but inside the link "Check out This NBR Post for links to fixes." is not working...
thanks...

 

Sorry about that. Here's the full link and should work:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2226516&postcount=2

 

I think is my A8JP problem, today i can't start the notebook, i can turn it on but it show nothing not even the Asus word when we initial the notebook.

I'm gonna to RMA it.

 

Sounds like what mine was doing. Does the screen even come on? On mine, I had to take the video card out and put it back in. This took all of 5 minutes to do. I did that about 3 months ago and everything is great now. 1 of 10 times, the screen would come on. It wouldn't even recognize that the notebook LCD was attatched. I use an external monitor at work, but was unable to use my laptop at home because of this problem.

I'd certainly try this before I sent it off to RMA

 

Anyone having any luck playing Bioshock?

 

I don't know if people still read this thread.

Just a headsup.
My A8JP worked fine for 4 months. Then it died. For some reason it wouldn't turn on anymore. ASUS' customer service is amazing. They fixed the problem. But the problem came back a month later. Sent it in, fixed it. Then 2 weeks later. Same problem.

So. Just to watch out for any other A8JP ownres.

 

ASUS is replacing my dead A8JP with a brand new one. I'm definitely going to sell it. Anyone know anyone who would want a brand new A8JP?

 

A8JP for at least 12 months but what I really want is the G1S.
I wish the battery life on A8JP was better than 2 hours.

 

Anyone playing call of duty 4 on this? What kind of settings and fps are you able to get? I've got the 1.83ghz / x1700 256mb version with 1gb ram.

Thanks

 

I've never tried to use my onboard microphone in the year, or so, that I've had this. I just tried last night and tonight and I can't seem to get any sound. I've checked volumes and such. I ran the test utility within the sound control applet and there is no meter movement.
Is there a driver that needs to be installed or something? I see no ? in device manager. I currently have kb888111xpsp2.exe which, I believe is microsoft's uaa audio driver. My soundcard is shown in device manager as adi 1986 and sound output works just fine.
JJ
Edit...
I downloaded the soundmax drivers from asus and now the mic is working. Apparently the uaa is enough for out, but not in.
JJ

 

A couple of questions...
Every now and then, when I use the Fn key for volume/brightness, the osd for the levels just stays on the screen (top/left). If I reboot, it goes away (obviously). Most of the time, it goes away, but every now and then it doesn't. I have the atk100 drivers installed, but not the rest of the hotkey, media, etc... software.
Also, most of the time, the screen defaults to like 80% brightness, even when plugged in. On some other laptops, I've seen bios settings for default battery/ac. I haven't seen it anywhere on the a8jp, though.
JJ