A8jm owner's Lounge

Hi all,

About AC mode and battery mode : is there a way under AC mode to set the cpu at 25% speed as in battery mode ?

thx
bye,
arnaud

 

well in pwr4gear there is no such thing as AC mode...i guess u could manually change the quiet office setting to 25% cpu and when u plug in AC it will take it down.

 

Arnaud,

Are you sure that it's possible to set the cpu at 25%, that would be like 455mhz.

 

using pwr4gear on battery saving mode that's exactly what happens

 

I just recently joined the A8jm club, and I've been having a little trouble scrolling.

I formatted the laptop and installed my XP Pro, and reinstalled all the drivers. I can't usuallly successfully scroll on my first attempt, as if the scroller is too insensitive. On the other hand, my touchpad acts too sensitive, often clicking when I don't want it to (tapping on).

Anyboby know what settings I shuld use? Thanks

 

Hi,

Was the scrolling ok before you installed your xp pro ?

 

I can't remember for sure, but I believe i was struggling as well to scroll.

It's kind of like a hit-and-miss. It either scroll perfectly or I need several attempts to scroll. Mind you, this is my first laptop so I may be ding something wrong.

 

Is it possible to use two external monitors, one at the DVI and one at the VGA port?

Thanks

*edit*: Got anybody some experience with A8Jm and Gentoo / Debian / ArchLinux (/ Fedora)?

 

The scrolling does take quite a bit of getting used to, since it's not directly on where the scroll is. It's slightly to the left of where it's marked... once I found the correct area, scrolling became much easier.

I'd suggest go into the Synaptics settings where you can test out sensitivity and scrolling etc to get used to the areas. Once you've got used to it, shouldn't be any problem.

 

Hi,

I've just made a "speedfan" research on the forum concerning the a8jm, as Darrick said earlier, it doesn't seem to be a8jm compatible, we can't control the fan rpm.

BUT I'm not sure about the link between the high temperatures reached once on darrick's laptop for example and the use of speedfan.
Today I let the A8Jm alone about one hour, I don't use speedfan, and when I came back it was quite hot, the cpu was about 75°C : the fan stopped for non reason I guess, that's the second time I encounter that problem, both with 207 bios.

I was using the 207 bios, I'm using 210 now but it's running non stop, so I was looking for manage the fan's rpm.
I found the following thread very useful : http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=27531

Perhaps we can find a way to reduce the fan's rpm with the 210 bios... If you find something let me know

bye,
arnaud

 

altho its not visible yet but i can kinda tell my spacebar key is turning shiny. nevertheless, this is one amazing unit for its specs.

 

true same here

 

The normal wear on all notebook keyboards

 

Mine's still fine thanks to the keyboard protector I'm using

 

Wich ASUS power supplys will fit the A8Jm? I would like a spare adaptor for school, but will only the ADP-90SB BB fit? How about the ASUS ADP-90FB? Does anyone know the difference?

 

Thanks, still getting the hang of it.

A question; how much battery wear are people getting with their a8jm?

 

i think you should always use the official AC adapter, as warned by your user's manual.

 

I thought I remembered my battery wear at 7% or something awhile back, but yesterday I did a battery callibration, and NHC says 2% ! ... so maybe I misread that 7%.... (ps. my notebook is abt 4 months old, mostly using AC, seldom fully discharge battery)

 

I've been runing ubuntu 6.06 (it's debian based), everything is going great, remember to load the smp kernel in order to get dual core support.

 

woah that's wierd! in 3 days my wear on NHC was at 4%! in mobilemeter is gives me a wear of 3%, I'll see what the wear level is after i start lectures next week.

 

Does anyone have or know of an est. time when we (A8Jm users) will get a Wireless Driver update?... Didn't Intel release one alrdy, but it was buggy and drained the sys mem... I remeber seeing it posted on the Asus website, but maybe I was mistaken... I really want to update the driver, hopefully it will be available sometime this month =/

 

we need an updated hcontrol.exe because I believe the issue is there. Im not sure though. Also the intel wireless drivers were for the 29xx series not for us

 

I think I remembered seeing some new wireless drivers for the 3945 series also, but it wasn't under A8J series... prob under some other model. ASUS really should get their support site better organized...

Edit: Found one under A6J if anybody's interested. I think it should be the same since A6J uses 3945 also
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/A6J/WLAN_XP_060823.zip

 

does anyone have an idea whether or not it's easy to tighten the hinges for the LCD on the a8jm?

 

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/pro3945abg/index.htm

 

Did anyone have problem with ASUSDVD, I cant use it to watch DVD, it run but there just no pictures, black screen. I can use WMP to watch it fine. Does anyone have the same problem.
Another problem I have is the blue screen of restart with skype and sometime with firefox. I was using skype then suddenly blue screen and it restart itself.Any advice for this guys? Have a nice day

 

What do you think about this?

I've been ready to buy hp nx8325 for 1200€ and now i've seen this.

And I think it is a 14" not a 15,4". Right?

 

Yes, it's a 14", not 15.4"... also look at the A8Js with Go7700 coming up.

 

Tthis may be an overly simple question, but how exactly do you take out the battery? I pulled the unlock lever up and tried to pull it out by the groove with no luck. Does it require more force?

 

more force is exactly what you need , mine comes out quite stiff too.

 

Yeah.. it's got some sort of sticky part that prevents it from falling out accidentally... you have to pull it a bit harder near the bottom edge. Once you find that sweet spot, it's easier to get it out

 

I really hope you guys are still talking about batteries here...

 

Sure... although it could apply in some other situations as well I see ...

*mind out of the gutter please Ted*

 

I'd like to know how to tighten the hinges should the need arise too, my friend has an old asus laptop and the hinges have gotten quite loose on his. Feeling the hinges on the A8JM I can definitely see how they might get loose after time.

 

It's quiet easy to tighten the hinges, I just did mine a couple days ago. They had gotten quiet loose. I followed the disassemblely PDF lying around on the forums here, popped off the hinge covers and tightened those ones ( they were not the loose ones anyways ). I had to open up the screen bezel and tighten the screws inside there. they had gotten quite loose.

Loose enough infact that the back of the LCD casing is cracked due to the 'stress' or whatever from having loose hinges.. I'm going to try to get it fixed next time I'm near a service centre ( or get around to calling asus support ).

I'm kinda disappointed the hinges got loose like they did but it's not unexpected. I've had 7-8 laptops and they've all had the problem. I was originally going to get the W3j in hopes that it's hinge design was more robust but the A8jm just ended up being a better bang for buck.

EDIT:

I'll add that the screen bezel is kinda tricky to get off, don't pull on it too hard or anything, if you kinda push edge of the bezel from the outside a bit it will unclip without breaking, I started down towards the bottom near the 'ASUS' logo, there are 3 clips between the hinges then one on each side.. onces you have them going it's pretty easy to get the rest up, I didn't need to completely remove the bezel to access the hinges.

 

Hey guys! I just got a new A8Jm here in Hong Kong. It has built-in bluetooth but I don't think I'll ever use it...

Anyway, this is my first ASUS laptop! I'm pervious owner of IBM T40, lenovo T43 , T60 and apple macbook pro. So far I'm really impressed with the build quality. It is not as rock solid compare to the T60 but the finish is actually better than the $2000 macbook pro.

Compare to the macbook pro, this laptop runs very cool and quiet. I do have a few complains though...

I'm not a big fan of the keyboard, I guess I got spoiled by the thinkpad keyboard... The glossy screen is nice but in my office which is a well lit area, I see a lot of reflection and it's pretty hard to read the text on the screen.

When I have time, I'll try to write a user review from a different point of view.

Also, I have a quesition. The laptop has DVI output, but what are the resolution it supports? I have a external widescreen monitor that goes up to 1440x900 can I enable this resolution when the A8jm is connected to the LCD?

Thanks

 

i am currently typing in Linux video outting to my 24" LCD @1920*1200

 

could u post links to the documents which helped u dis-assemble the hinges etc to tighten them.

 

I have attached it to this post.. I found in on a post on here somewhere but my searching powers are not that great it would seem anyways needless to say i'm sure it voids all kindsa warranties and such.

but.. better than returning a laptop for just loose hinges.

 

Does anyone know, if XP automatically throttles the CPU down, if no other software is installed? Is there a way to check this?

 

I run 1680x1050 externally all the time, and I believe it will drive up to 1920x1200 or maybe even more

 

I do not believe Windows XP has the capability to throttle CPU speeds. You must use some other proprietary software like NHC or RMClock to do it.

 

The Bluetooth!!! Oh its so hard to put in. Have to disect the whole notebook =(

 

Oh OK. I don't have my ASUS CD right now (forgot it, at my friends place when I was visiting the US...doh!) Is there a program like that on the CD (Like an official ASUS program or something)

 

Actually, Windows will throttle the cpu- it is just not very "adjustable" like Power4gear, etc. I don't have any software installed on mine, and it runs at something like 997 when idle.

 

I believe that is actually the CPU itself clocking down to 996/997 when not in use, ie. not Windows.
Intel Speedstep or something:
http://www.intel.com/technology/itj...art01_Intro_to_Core_Duo/p05_power_control.htm

Leong: On the ASUS CD, there should be something called Power4Gear, you can use that.

 

After 10 days of owning this laptop, I must say that I am impressed. Besides not liking the idea of a not functioning button and light (BT), I can't complain about anything else. It played HL2 & HL2: E1 like a dream, and I can't wait to take it to lectures tomorrow.

 

wait till you try F.E.A.R. - for notebook standards it runs faster than my desktop

 

I just updated my 209 bios to 210. I'm not sure if it's louder, i initially thought it was. i wanted to go back to 209 to compare but i can't find it. is there anyway someone can send it to me or am i out of luck?

EDIT: are you even allowed to go back to older firmware? So far winflash wont let me as ive tried 207 for test purposes.

 

the_realness: use winflash /nodate from command prompt

Haven't seen 209 around.. there's 207 and 208