A8jm owner's Lounge

very interesting, does it hinder typing at all? Cos i remember back in teh day i had one for my desktop and it was really annoying, like does it stick to the keyboard and stuff? cos the price is alrite about $20 US after shipping

 

For me it doesn't really hinder typing... it doesn't stick or anything.. just lays there on top of your keyboard.... Don't think it'll really protect you if you spill a whole glass of liquid on your keyboard, since it can slip through the corners, but it doest protect from dust and minor spills ...

I ordered some from Tjun when he was in China, it only cost about US$4 - 5 there , but I couldn't meet him until I move back to Indo a month or 2 from now.. so I just bought that for $20 including shipping to Canada..

 

ok thanks...i'll think abt this one

 

I did noticed something very GOOD in bios 210. There was flickering in screen when I opened lid. Flickering disappeared after few minutes. With 210 there isn't that flickering anymore. I think that could be affected by newer VGA bios in bios 210. By the way I don't have A8Jm, I have A8Jc with 7300go.

 

Since this forum helped me to decide on and to find the a8jm at a good price I thought I would post some tweaks I did that other people might find helpful. Be forewarned, since these do make registry changes and require the wielding of a screwdriver, you attempt these at your own risk.

Tips on A8Jm

Rattling keyboard fix:
I had read about some users complain about a little bit of rattling keyboard when using keys on the extreme lefthand side I also had this issue. The problem is that there are fixed tabs on both the left and right hand side designed to hold the keyboard down. The two little tabs are next to the tab and page-up keys. If the keyboard isn't installed just right the base of the keyboard doesn't go under the left-hand tab because it is much smaller than the right hand tab. To get the keyboard positioned correctly first you have to loosen one screw from the bottom of the notebook. The screw for the keyboard is marked with a "K>" symbol. Just loosen it approximtely one turn or less. Now while pushing the keyboard from the Enter key side towards the Tab key side re-tighten that screw. The rattling should now be reduced perhaps even significantly.

Occasional creaking sound:
Not sure if anyone else experienced this but when putting pressure on the right front of the notebook there would occasionally be a creaking sound. This is caused by the HDD cover rubbing against the case bottom. To remedy this loosen the one screw that holds the HDD cover and while firmly pushing on the cover from the front of the notebook towards the rear, re-tighten the screw. This will create enough of a gap that instead of a creaking sound you will now get the occasional clicking. Obviously there are other solutions to this, polishing the cover and case surfaces where they contact so they are extremely smooth (may not be that easy since the contact area is fairly thin), use of felt paper so there is no direct plastic-plastic contact (may not be enough of a gap to be able to actually accomplish this), etc.

Getting rid of Proset Wireless manager but keeping the Wireless LED functioning:
The Intel wireless programs are loaded along with the drivers and set to automatically start even if you prefer using the windows wireless connection manager. The intel programs do have slightly more features but for most people don't seem to really provide any useful benefit. They also appear to be required in order for the wireless LED indicator to function but they aren't. To keep them from running I modified the registry so that they wouldn't run at startup. The registry entries to modify are in HKLM/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Current Version/Run/ In here are programs that are run at startup. I basically changed all the intel programs so that "disable" was part of the file to be executed so for example "C:\Program Files\Intel\Wireless\Bin\EOUWiz.exe" became "C:\Program Files\Intel\Wireless\Bin\EOUWiz.exe_disable" since the latter doesn't actually exist nothing is run and windows continues the boot process. There are 3 intel apps that are run at startup EOUApp, IntelWireless, and IntelZeroConfig just modify the path these entries contain as mentioned above. One thing before you do this, if you haven't already, change over to the windows wireless manager. By keeping the registry entries there and just adding "disable" they are easy to find and undo if you decide that you do want to use the intel wireless manager software.

The quick keys:
Personally I got rid of the Splendid software. Like a myriad of other "picture enhancing" features available on many TV sets it is constantly mucking with the picture and in most circles where picture fidelty is important this "enhancing" would be known as a "picture destroying" setting. So I got rid of it but now that key did nothing to get some use out of the quick keys I figured out how to set the splendid key to startup another program, this requires a registry mod. A new registry string has to be added to the HKLM/SOFTWARE/ATK0100 key, the name of this string is CHAMELEON_KEY. Once you add that key as a string just set its value to the full path to whatever program you want to run. To actually use it shutdown and restart the hcontrol program or reboot. That is the only key I have figured out how to customize so far. Although, it appears, the power mode key is tied to the presentation_key value in the registry but I wanted to keep that as is so haven't actually played with it so I could be wrong on that one.

Not a tweak but a question, for some reason my media key (instant-on/instantfun) stopped working from within windows; though, it still works from power-off as the ASUS revised manual states. When I first got the laptop it would start the DVD player but now it doesn't do anything from within windows and I haven't yet figured out how to get it functioning again so if anybody has an idea about it post some advice.

 

player1: great first post, very informative and useful.. thanks

 

This can be done also by typing "msconfig" in Run. There you can find startup section and there can be found also these three applications. Disable these and there you go.

 

There is new audio drivers in Asus website for A8J series.

 

Huh where did u get that from? I can't find the new drivers ur talking about for the Asus A8J series... Checked A8Jm, A8Jc, and A8Ja found nothing regarding a new audio driver (link plz?)

 

ftp://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/A8F/AUDIO_XP_060811.zip
There you go.

 

What changed in the drivers?

 

i installed it but honestly i have no idea what changed.



About the new BIOS version (210, i think?), i now get an error at bootup that says that there is a problem w/ the ethernet driver or something like it. Any idea what it might be? My computer's internet stuff is all fine (wired and wireless) so idk why this error comes up...

 

Daniel, do you have a new TPM option in BIOS by any chance? None of us seem to have it, even though 210 is supposed to enable it in BIOS. I tried 210 and couldn't see any improvement, so just reverted back to 207.

Not sure about your ethernet problem, maybe revert to an older BIOS (207 or 208) and see if it's still there?

 

I've had my a8jm for almost two weeks now, and I would like to share some of the minor glitches that I overcame, in case anyone else had the same problem.

1). When I first got the laptop, I was able to access the "Shared Documents" folder. After doing either a windows update or using the NTFS converter (I'm not sure which of these caused the problem), I was unable to access the "Shared Documents" folder. By "unable to access" I mean that I couldn't even read the contents of the folder; I just got an error dialog box that said "cannot access folder."

The solution: I had to change the file permissions of the folder to enable access to the folder. Here is the link to the windows support page for doing this on win xp home: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308418/
Basically, what you have to do to change the file permissions with windows XP home is reboot the computer in safe mode, right click the folder and open up the "properties" dialog, then make the changes under the "security" tab (you need to be in safe mode or else this tab won't appear). After setting the folder properly, I was able to access the "Shared Documents" folder as before.​

2). So far, the following problem has happened to me twice. If I start the computer on battery power, then plug in the AC adapter, then change either the volume, brightness, power4gear mode, or splendid mode, the indicator in the upper lefthand corner for the volume, brightness, power4gear or splendid does not disappear. The icon is supposed to fade away after a few seconds, but for some reason, it gets messed up because of the switch from battery to AC.

Temporary solution: Open up the task manager (ctrl-alt-delete) and you will see a program running called "ATKOSD" under the "applications" tab. End this task. When you end the task, the icon in the upper lefthand corner will disappear. If you try to change the brightness or volume, the icon will not reappear on the screen again (unless you reboot the computer).​

###################################################

Now I have a few questions:
1). (Following up from my #2 above) What exactly is the ATK thing? There is an icon for it in the taskbar with which you can change the behavior (hybernate mode, standby mode, poweroff, etc) of closing the lid, pressing the powerbutton, pressing the sleep button, etc. Is this program really necessary?

2). Questions about power4gear: Is power4gear really necessary? Can't I just use windows to adjust the power saving profiles for the laptop? What would happen if I uninstalled power 4 gear?

3). My question about power4gear leads into my next question: When I am playing games (i.e. halflife 2) on battery mode, the performance is unbelievably poor because the computer reduces performance to save battery. I've tried switching power4gear to game mode and forcing the nvidia drivers to "maximum performance" rather than "maximum battery savings" when running on battery, but the game still runs slow. Are there any other settings that I can adjust? I remember reading a post about this a long time ago, but I cannot find the thread for the life of me!

4). What is the purpose of asus net4switch? Is it used just to switch between wireless profiles? Can't the intel proset drivers already handle this? What would happen if I just uninstalled net4switch?

5). I have similar questions about the "wireless console 2" icon in the task tray. What is the purpose of it? It seems to just display if you are connected with the wireless card or the non-wireless network card. Can't I just use windows to tell me what I am connected to?

6). I don't really use the splendid thing for switching between color modes. What would happen if I just uninstalled it?

I apologize if these questions seem silly or basic, but answers to them would probably help many people who are having as much trouble finding documentation on these programs as I am.

~Dan

 

1) ATK is the ACPI driver helps save power etc etc of ur laptop. The program that lets u choose the behavior of closing the lid, pressing the button etc. u can safely uninstall, u can easily access those options in power settings.

2) Pwr4Gear goes a long way to save your battery power. When you select battery saving option it actually throtles ur cpu down to 900Mhz - 1Ghz instead of the regular 1.8 (in my case i have the A8Jm). The most common setting is quiet office, it slows ur cpu down and that also generates less heat and ur fan comes on less often. I would recommend you keep pwr4gear installed, its the easiest way to get 3+ hrs on battery.

3) yes on battery mode I have noticed the same problem, and I have not found a workaround for it yet. On HL2 i basically get like 30fps which sucks.

4) Net4Switch helps preserve settings if u connect to a lot of different networks. Not worth it you can safely remove it.

4) If you like the Intel Wireless gui and drivers then you can continue to use it. Otherwise you can remove the intel wireless application, keep the drivers and use the windows wireless configuration. A lof of people use it, but its totally upto you.

5) Splendid is another useless function with a stupid sticker on the A8J. I use splendid sometimes when play counter strike source, i select the gamma mode, helps spot ppl better in tunnels and stuff hehe but when u get flashed its worse...

No worries about asking silly or basic questions, as long as you did a search and had further questions we are all here to help.

Other than the pet peeves how do you like the machine?

 

Thanks for the great response, Zydus. It was very helpful. I hadn't realized that power4gear was so effective in terms of battery life. I'll probably ditch some of the extra wireless networking software that I don't need.

Hehehe ya. And like 18 fps in Lost Coast with all the HDR and water reflections...
However, when I am plugged into AC power, I get over 100 fps in CS:S on the default video settings (with the exception of HDR-- I turned it off because it annoyed me on de_dust) and that is without messing around with the Nvidia drivers or turning power4gear to the "game" or "super high performance" mode.

My a8jm is amazing. I have no complaints (the minor issues I mentioned earlier were silly software issues, not hardware. The only hardware issue I can think of is that the vertical viewing angles are not outstanding, but then again, they never are on 14" screens. Besides, its not really an issue anyway, as long as you keep your head more than six inches away from the screen ). The screen is amazingly sharp and bright. I was worried at first because I thought it might be too small to look at for a long time (for things like programming), but the picture is so sharp that it is easy to read. When I first showed it to my dad, he could even read the text without his reading glasses because lcd screens are not fuzzy like CRT screens. Besides, if someone thinks that the text is still too small, he/she can just increase the font size! I think that the 1280x800 resolution is excellent. When I first got my a8jm, I played around with it for only about a half an hour before going to turn on my desktop. I had always loved my Viewsonic A70f 17-inch CRT monitor, but after using the laptop for just a short amount of time, the CRT monitor looked extremely fuzzy and like a complete piece of crap compared to the laptop screen!

I was surprised by the temperatures on this thing-- they are much cooler than I expected for such a powerful little machine. After a couple hours of gaming, the GPU only went up to mid-60's, the processor into the mid 50's, and the hard drive was 48 (all in Centigrade, by the way) (I used mobilemeter for the HDD and CPU temps and the nvidia drivers for the GPU temps). Granted, the ambient temperature plays a role, too, but the machine has effective cooling, none the less. This machine is also pretty quiet.

Speaking of gaming, the a8jm is amazing. On my desktop (Athlon 1800 XP with Geforce 3 TI200), I am lucky to get over 20 fps in CS:S (it used to play much better a couple years ago until they came out with some updates (*grumbles and curses about steam*)...) I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could actually come out of firefights alive instead of lagging up in the middle.

LOL, what I am saying sounds similar to what everyone else has been saying about this machine (actually, many of the Asus laptops in general). I would just like to re-iterate that this computer feels much nicer in person than any picture or description can convey. I was actually going to buy this computer on newegg in May, until it became sold out. Then I saw the shiny w3j and started having second thoughts about the a8jm because the w3j is more widely available in the US (where I live). Then I had second thoughts about the 14" screens in general because I thought they might be too small for long hours of reading. Then I looked into models from other manufacturers. All the while, I read countless posts and reviews and many pictures. I went to bestbuy, staples, circuit city, etc., in order to get a feel for the different screen sizes. I kept going in circles with my decision, and I finally ended up getting the a8jm-- my first choice! And I couldn't be happier. I guess my advice to people looking for a laptop is to just pick something (make an educated decision) and order it

Another happy customer to add to the Asus customer satisfaction poll

~Dan

(P.S. It's amazing how dusty the screen gets, lol. This thing is a real static-electricity dust magnet. It's not so much a problem as it is worth a good chuckle)

 

yeah true, i got one of those lcd wiping solution things from Radio Shack they seem to work better than just a napkin or something, cos that just seems to collect all the dust in one corner.

I play css on quiet office mode, without hdr easily get 60 - 70 fps and keeping the laptop really cool. To check pwr4gear at work and also since we both use mobile meter set the Frequency option to From Drive(WinXp) and as u change pwr4gear settings u can see the frequency update.

 

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't played around with mobilemeter very much yet so I didn't realize there was this setting to change. (I was wondering why it was stuck on 1.83GHz when I knew power4gear was supposed to scale the frequency). It's really helpful to see how power4gear works! I hadn't realized that "High Performance" was only running the processor at 1.0 GHz! Wow!

~Dan

 

High Performance: It runs at 1.0Ghz when u arent doing anything processor intensive, the moment you start extracting compressed files etc it will jump to 1.83Ghz, so depending on the need it will scale the frequency. If the performance at 1.0Ghz is acceptable to u, it shud be to most if ur listenign to songs, surfing/word processing etc. then keep it on Quiet Office mode, then its locked down at 1.00Ghz

 

thanks for the great set of questions and answers! It asked / answered a lot of my own questions.

 

where do you guys recommend getting an A8jm in USA (i dont need bluetooth)

 

Try MilestonePC or PortableOne

 

Anyone know if the A8JM from MilestonePC comes with a battery or if it needs to be purchased separately? I have finally decided I want this one. Aside from no BT (which I don't mind since I don't use it that often and can deal with a dongle) this laptop seems to offer a great blend of power and portability.

 

i'm pretty sure it does...
i don't know any vendor that'll sell the full laptop w/o the battery...

 

crow610: Yep, definitely came with a battery when I purchased from them.

ps. I got a small BT 2.0 dongle from Ebay for 15 bucks CAD shipped

 

ur up late darrick 3:38 am? have u even slept?

 

zydus: hehehe... i was sleeping.. baby woke up to feed, after he went back to sleep.. I remembered to charge my mouse batteries... but couldn't resist checking out the forums for a bit

 

hehe ok

 

Sorry to bug you guys, but I just wanted to confirm nobody with an A8JM has the graininess problem we're experiencing with the W3J and Z/S96J.

 

What is the graininess issue?

 

People in that particular thread say that it is only laptops with the ATI x1600, but you might want to check the thread to confirm this.

 

i have no idea what it looks like if u guys could post some pictures of ur screen i could compare and let you know

 

Hey guys, just noticed that BIOS v.210 has disappeared from the support site... I wonder if they're working on including Merom support for it... since the V6J and A6J BIOS already includes Merom support...

 

Simple. Take a grey screen like your Display properties in Windows. Move the window around. If there seems to be some crap that doesn't move with the window (like a streak or some shading effect), it means that you're having the same graininess problem.

Taking a screenshot won't do anything since the video buffer is not messed up -- rather, it happens somewhere between when the video data leaves the video card's RAM to when you see it, ie: it's either something wrong internally with the video card after it leaves the video RAM, the internal output to the LCD panel from the graphics card, or the LCD panel itself (which many people said it was not).

 

and that streak or shading effect just stays there? or goes away immediately?

 

i def. don't have that kind of problem (graininess)

As for other A8jm owners; does it seem like the hinge for the lcd is getting a bit loose? Is there a way to tighten it up a lil bit myself?

 

i have noticed this as well. It isn't that bad but definitely looser compared to when i bought it

 

Mine is still very tight, on the other hand.

Its a bit after its time, but anyone manage to vista on the a8jm?

 

i Did It! Finally Pulled The Trigger! I Can't Wait For My A8jm!!!


Time to update my profile! Thanks for all your help with deciding which laptop to get. Right now I have a P4 3ghz with 512mb ram and an old Geforce 5500FX desktop! Can we say ebay???

 

ya its definitely looser which i think is a good thing...but its still tight enuff because i cant lift the lid with one hand. At about 45- 50 degrees the base starts lifting up so i have to hold the base down.

I just noticed that the plastic just underneath the uni-button trackpad has quite a bit of flex...and the middle part of the "fake" single button is slightly lifted up...can anyone confirm this?

 

Hyperluminous: I definitely do not have the graininess issue on my a8jm. I spent an extensive amount of time reading through all of the graininess posts because I almost bought an S96J, so I have a pretty good idea about what the graininess would look like if I had it.

crow610: Congrats on your purchase I don't think that you'll be disappointed.

I haven't noticed my hinges loosening yet, but then again, I have not been able to spend as much time using my laptop as I would have liked I'll check back in a few weeks after I put on some more wear and tear to report on the hinges.

 

yep; confirmed.

 

I checked ups and it is supposed to come Monday. I'm gonna have a hard time sitting still at work!

 

Hey guys,

I've been using my A8jm for a month & a half - and have been very happy with it.
Recently though, I've noticed the cover doesn't close correctly. Seems the latches don't align properly, and I have to readjust it to get it to snap shut. Strange because I haven't moved it around much and can't think of why this started happening.
Does anyone else have this issue?
I will call Asus to see what they say. If it's a hardware problem, do I have to send it to Asus or just take it back to the store?

Thanks for now.

 

I'd say try the store where u got it first... if they can do some minor tweaks to fix it, will save you time from sending it back and forth to ASUS...

 

Just got my A8JM today. I love it!!!!!

 

heh crow610, how do u like ur A8Jm so far?

I also pulled the trigger today but my dealer said they were out of stock and have to order. Anyone know how long that takes? A few days I hope as I can't wait to get my hands on the A8Jm.

 

Heya, another A8JM owner here.
I'm sorry if I've missed this one but is it possible to hook up two monitors simultaneously (that is one in the dvi and one in the vga port to end up with three monitors including the laptop screen)? I've hooked two up but can only seem to run one and my laptop monitor simultaneously.

 

I have that problem as well. Sometimes I have to manually push the open lid button in order for the lid to latch shut.

 

So far it's great! I was quite hesitant about getting a 14" thinking that it would be too small but after playing around with it anything larger would have been too large for a laptop.