ASUS U500vz/UX51vz Owners' Lounge!

Just got the replacement adaptor through Laptop Battery and Laptop AC Adapter

Nice and compact, however... doesn't fit! :-(

Send them a mail, let's see how they will fix this.

 

Has anyone tried a /force on the ux51vza with the 205 ux51vz bios?

 

Dude! A virtual keg sent your way. :thumbsup:

No idea how this happened with the BIOS upgrade and it didn't stand out as being different.

Linux is working fine, but my Win8 clean install is choking. I can work through that now that I have access to my drives.

Funny thing, I have never had any fan noise. This is the quietest laptop that I've ever seen, bar none. I wonder what's different with mine?

 

Admittedly I rarely go below 100+ tabs but seeing as I dont believe RAM usage influences battery life how do you guys get these times! I'm kind of annoyed at my battery - i specifically purchased an ultrabook to not have to charge it every couple of hours and yes i know this is not an ULV CPU but still i rarely got more than 3h use on it and that's not quite nice...

I wonder if my battery may be corrupted. For one thing my charger runs really very hot (it wouldn't burn your skin but you would certainly not want to touch it for more than a few seconds) and buzzes at times... Anybody else has that behavior?

 

100+ tabs? Check your vm usage. RAM use has negligible impact, but swap can have a big effect.

 

I was waiting for this. In for one. Thanks!

 

It really depends on your usage, of course. If you start gaming on the battery I'd be surprised if you could last 3 hours. 100 tabs sound extreme to me.

My charger does emit a soft, high frequency whine (thankfully not audible at its normal distance, even without the laptop fans running), but I have not experienced it getting really hot. At the moment it is lukewarm, but I've only been going for 10 minutes or so.

 

Thanks Terpen. I've noticed my charger getting hot only while it is charging. When the battery meter reaches 100%, it seems the charger starts too cool down. Maybe this is the normal modus operandi, but i havent noticed such extreme temps on other laptop chargers i've had in the past.

I don't game, i mostly browse and work (programming IDEs nothing CPU intensive) and dont even utube too often.
Somehow it doesn't seem right that the number of tabs can influence the battery. It probably affects the wifi adapter usage and maybe the CPU if some JS are running all the time but i still dont think it can account for 7hours->3hours dropdown in capacity....

 

@gkos
But how did you get the installs to work properly?! I've been lurking on this thread for a few weeks, while deciding whether to get the Asus or a Macbook Pro. I anticipated I would have difficulties establishing dual boot but I have now been at it for two solid days (since, in fact, about 5 minutes after first opening the box) and am getting nowhere. Please see my question here Windows 8 Dual Boot Ubuntu 12.10 with UEFI broken Windows boot manager - Ask Ubuntu for details.

Anyone who has succeeded in dual booting Windows 8 and Ubuntu on this machine - please help! I'm supposed to be working with this computer on Monday morning!!

 

Francisperp,
Check over on Ask Ubuntu. I provided some answers, but need to log off now. I will send you BIOS and Grub2 details tomorrow. Send me an email and I will send you the details before posting here and Ask Ubuntu so you get them faster on Sunday.

 

Here is my silent setup.

Usually CPU temp remains within 55-65 C range, but only for 'Internet' preset (no turbo, vid=0.87V). With turbo ON, vid stays at 0.96V and CPU reaches 70 C and higher.
I'm sure this is not because of the clock speed, but of the VID. I wish i could somehow reduce vid to values 0.8-0.85 without turning turbo off.

Is there any way ?

p.s. This is also a way to avoid throttling (in a few games when this is an issue) to turn turbo off. I'm getting constand 2.1 GHz instead of 2.8, but no annoying droppings to 1.2. Again, i'm sure the key is VID, not frequency.

 

Hey Guys,
has anybody managed to disable the RAID convfiguration? I have the 2x128GB model since yesterday and have tried to do it via BIOS (SATA configuration: RAID to AHCI) but it does not work. I want to use the machine for Premiere CS6 video editing. 2 separate phyical drives are better for the programme performance. Help!!

 

Please provide more info on your set up. I am helping another member on breaking the RAID config and setting it up in a dual boot with Linux and Win 8.

My guess is that you want to keep Win 8. Please note that if this is the case, once you break the RAID (in BIOS), you lose all data, programs and OS.

So back up the data, and prepare to reload all

Prior to that, carefully consider how you will set up the partitions. And once you break the RAID, from what I've read (and my son who has run Win 8 from Alpha backs me up on), Win 8 will choke on boot due to how the old MBR keeps track of what and where everything is at. It's my best guess that you need to do a clean reinstall of Win 8.

I will defer to anyone with more Win 8 knowledge. I gave up on MSFT nine years ago and this is the first system where I set it up in a dual boot mode with anything MSFT.
But I am pretty sure that I am correct in my guess.

 

It's getting late, and I am extremely angry, so please excuse the potential brain fart that prevents me from coming to the correct answer here.


I've had the Zenbook for about 7 weeks and I've had tremendous UI problems with the touchpad. I type between 125-140 wpm so whenever my hands touch the touchpad (every 20 seconds or so) I have to recover what I've typed by ctrl+V but in browsers, it doesn't always work.

I just spent 20 minutes on a reply in Firefox and lost all of it. I damned near threw the Zenbook to the tile floor and stomped on it!

Anyone know how to easily kill the touchpad? I use a wireless USB 3.0 mouse for the point and poke interface that I hardly ever use. I use keyboard for both Linux and Windoze.

Thanks for any insights folks!

 

What about FN+F9 ? I don't know whether it works in Linux, and sorry if you already knew that ;-)

 

Follow up to Windows 8 Dual Boot Ubuntu 12.10 with UEFI broken Windows boot manager - Ask Ubuntu.

At one point in the process I switched CMS support back off, and bricked the computer. No idea why - I didn't change anything else, and all I'd been doing was installing software, no reason it should screw up the BIOS that I can think of.

Anyway, now I get a blank screen, fans whirring, and nothing else. Ctrl + Home flashes the HD read light, but not the USBs so it doesn't look like I can do some kind of BIOS recovery that way. I also opened it up, removed the battery and the motherboard battery (both very easy to do btw), etc, for a hard BIOS reset. Nothing.

Contacted Asus and their best guess was a faulty motherboard. It was only delivered last Friday, so I'm returning it to the retailer and asking for a replacement. At one point (this is Curry's in the UK) someone at the retailer told me that they would refuse to do anything because I had been messing around installing other OSs etc, but that seems like bull to me. Anyway, they are picking it up tomorrow. Yet another week working on my ancient Thinkpad praying that it doesn't brick on me as well...

 

Oh, and if anyone has managed to get Win 8 and Linux both booting in UEFI mode then please share! Guilden_NL has been helping me out trying to get a dual boot going in CSM/legacy mode, but it seems like UEFI would be a better long term solution, and now my computer is bricked I have another week or two to plan a new strategy... My experience thus far is that the Ubuntu installer screws the Windows 8 Boot Manager entirely. Haven't tried installing Ubuntu first yet.

 

Hello to everyone here!

I'm getting my laptop tomorrow, the 2x128gb SSD model. Got any tips on how I should handle my laptop? Any software I should add? Or should I try to go for a fresh install from the start itself to get rid of the bloatware?

Another thing I'm new to, is this RAID concept. Apparently both SSDs are in RAID 0, which means I only get 128gb of space to use, but with increased performance in terms of speed. Is that correct? What if I want to make use of my whole 256gb of space?

 

As I understand it, the raid setup is just used to link the drives together - it is not Raid 1 (which provides a backup). And because they are SSDs and the raid is actually fakeraid I don't think there is any difference in performance (I read somewhere that the raid can actually decrease performance in this use case). So you will not be limited to 128GB - I seem to remember there being around 200GB of space around, because the laptop ships with a 20GB recovery partition.

If you want to get rid of that partition you shouldn't have to break the raid, but you might have to reinstall Windows 8, which effectively means buying the upgrade to Windows 8 Pro.

Having said all of this, bear in mind I just bricked my Asus U500 so it might not be a great idea to trust my opinions...

 

No, RAID 0 just combines the two SSDs to one 256GB virtual drive. Because it can write to two SSDs simultaneously perfomance should be better. If one SSD fails, you lose all your data.

RAID 1 on the other hand mirrors the two SSDs, so you have only 128GB available. The performance is slightly reduced (it has to write to two SSDs), but when one of the SSDs fail, you don't lose your data.

 

Unfortunately that key combination doesn't work in either Linux or Win 8.
I'll try disabling the driver which is a longer workaround as I wanted to temp shut it off when traveling and not using the mouse (like while traveling in an Airplane).

 

Is everyone in N.America having a bad time with Asus not providing enough web resources to download drivers, etc? I've wasted this morning with Intel/McAfee Support because I can't download the Intel Management Engine driver from Asus.

It seems that Asus considers Support beneath them and doesn't invest much on their web presence. It feels like a fly by night, cheap Chinese modem company when it comes to Support!

 

Hi all, just got my ux51vz-xh71, and noticed that there are 2 drives in explorer, is this normal?, how can I check if raid is enabled?

 

It is normal and you can check it with e.g. Intel rapid storage.

 

oh good, thank you for the help

 

Hi! I was wondering about the fan noise level and general laptop temperature - the reviews said the fans are constantly spinning even when idle and the laptop heat up to 50C on demanding games, but that could probably be fixed in a BIOS update - what is your experience with these two factors?

 

Got U500vz yesterday. Both Windows8 and Linux (Fedora 18) running on Raid0. Fedora installed quite easily from USB stick but figuring out how make grub to find Windows' .efi took awhile.
Win-8 wont boot after installing Fedora-18 - FedoraForum.org helped, but had to use --target=fs_uuid, not --target=hints_string with grub2-probe.
Before installing Fedora I shrank D: partition on Window so that there was unreserved space. Fedora installation recognized that automatically.

Now just crossing fingers that Asus gives us better bios for fan controlling. (On Windows Fan Controller seems to work well.)

 

I want to ask question:
see it looks like there is the standart bleeding on the upper right and lower left corner of the screen. It is clearly visible when the note is starting on the black background.
The quiestion is: Is it typical or there are more or less issues with that?

 

Guys I finally got mine, works great (but I did not get the external dvd drive though ). I'm searching for a slim sleeve for it, anything you guys have found? Everything I'm finding looks too thick for this beautiful machine.

 

There are a few slim USB external caddies out there. Checked out google shopping and ebay?

 

I am interested in this aswell. I want a very thin sleeve that fits the laptop perfectly, and is so thin that it does not add much size when putting it into a bag. Would feel alot more safe when using a sleeve like that considering scratches etc.

 

I use the Tom Bihn 4Z Cache sleeve. It's as basic as they come.

Anyone else seem to find that Firefox runs slow as hell after a while? I am not sure if there is something with the way this machine sleeps that is causing the awful slowdowns.

 

I haven't noticed such problem, though I use mainly Linux. But, if you can reproduce the problem, could you please file a bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi and CC me ( :smaug on bugzilla )

 

The same happens with me, but it also happened on my old Win7 NB. I found out that it helps just to restart firefox, and exactly for this purpose I found the addon "restart firefox". It adds a simple button ;-)
Link (german): https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/restart-firefox-10749/

 

I'm in the market, and the UX51vz looks pretty incredible. My question: should I buy it right now? It basically has everything I want (real graphics, good screen and keyboard, SSD, no built in optical drive, under five pounds), but I'm nervous. Is something similar but better/cheaper coming down the pipe in the next few months? Will I get buyer's remorse?

 

Maybe the new Samsung Chronos serie 7 (early April), can't say which is "better"... They both are awesome You might want to check the dedicated thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=702308

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Thanks so much!

In other news, this forum is so much friendlier than other places on the web.

 

Anyone else had a problem with the monitor auto-dimming? It seems as if the screen turns dark when I have a dark picture, and brighter when I have brighter picture. Does anyone know how to change this?

 

I wrote some posts about this a while back. It's not the light sensor doing this but a reversed-around-not-so-smart Intel driver. Go to you intel driver power options and turn off "Display Power Saving Technology" while running on battery. It's seriously broken. If you want more information, check my posts from a while back.

 

Ugh, it's even worse because Power4gear doesn't play nicely with it, causing it to constantly default itself on and reset other settings.

Me personally, I like to add a bit more color saturation plus turn off that ridiculous Display Power Saving Technology. It's really the worst thing in the world, and I feel bad for others who haven't figured out how to turn off the 10 different display-dimming bullcrap programs. I wound up uninstalling Power4gear so I didn't have to keep changing the Intel display settings every time I booted up.

 

Can you please write a small guide about how to fix this display thing and what we should/have to uninstall for the purpose? I'd be very grateful!

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Hi U500VZ owners!

I'm curious about the fan noise problem. I guess most of you are using Notebook Fan Control to control the fans by now.

How is that working out? Have you had any heat or unstability problems since you started using the program? (does it work with all known BIOS versions?)
And does the U500 now feel like it came with silent fans from the factory, or do you have to interact with NBFC regularly to change settings etc?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences! I hope to become an owner myself in not too long

 

Anyone else getting BSOD's now and then? Maybe had it 6-7 times since I got it in November.

DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION

I tried to analyze the minidump, and it only pointed at ntoskrnl.exe with error code 0x133.

If anyone is interested I can provide a minidump file.

I'm sure this is a software issue but I want to confirm if anyone else is getting it on this laptop :

Edit: forgot to add the fact that this bluescreen exclusively (as far as I can remember) only happened when I open the lid after it has been asleep.

 

Can't say that I have gotten BSODs however twice the computer have rebooted by itself. I think the culpit is the touchpad driver as it spews out a lot of error reports in the logs.
Note that otherwise the computer have been reliable under load and while running long stretches of time crunching data...

 

Works out fine. No heat or stability issues whatsoever here, and I've not meddled with the settings since I set it up originally.

It's not as clean as factory silence; upon boot the fans spin until NBFC loads, for instance. And when you shutdown, Windows takes a second to force-close NBFC first, which is not 100% clean, if you understand what I mean. But these are really tiny quibbles, and I'm really happy with the laptop since this program came along. Without it, the fans really frustrated me.


@ipkryss: I did not get BSODs or the like since I got it.

 

This isn't good news. I had the BSOD due to a faulty graphics card and returned the computer. My current UX51VZ has had zero BSODs.

 

Ouch... damn. Gotta troubleshoot those logs now.

 

I forget, are you running anything other than the default Windows 8 install? Mine was pretty evident, when I got the BSOD, it consistently referenced a file directly related to Nvidia, and it only happened when the GPU was in use.

 

Sounds great!

How hot does your keyboard get under moderate to heavy CPU load (e.g. photo editing in Photoshop)? A guy at another forum said he would not recommend the U500vz for such tasks because the keyboard would reach temps around 60 Celcius, the same temperature as the heat pipe, which is in contact with the chassis.

 

I use linux, and tend to compile large programs (where CPUs are running at max speed for about 20mins), yet keyboard never gets hot.