ASUS U500vz/UX51vz Owners' Lounge!

I have news. I went and asked Asus,

...which is not the answer I expected, nor an answer to make it likely that I'll buy an Asus.
I don't find it likely that I can get a throttling or fan problem fixed on warranty.

 

Indeed...
Well.. the die is cast.

Two years of warranty though? I've only found it with 1 year global limited warranty everywhere

 

Maybe Asus was referring to European market.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

Just upgraded the RAM to 12GB. I had to go out and buy a T5 Torx screwdriver. And yes, you have to remove the rear two rubber feet, which is a bit tricky. And there's some double sided tape at the rear of the back plate. Once you get that off, it's easy to swap out the RAM. Plug in play. Awesome!

 

Swedish market, I suppose. Actually they can't sneak out of 3 years repairs of factory faults ( Konsumentköplagen); just that the law says that I have to prove it was an original fault once the friendly warranty is up.

Still, I replied with my surprise these things would be covered under warranty.

 

Did anybody already try a clean win8 installation? I would be very interrested to upgrade to Win8 Pro and I wonder if this Asus power saving stuff makes any sense at all.

 

Hi everyone,

What is the strange metallic cylinder shown on the publicity shots of the U500VZ?
http://zenbook.asus.com/upload/210C16HAF8BEB643C742A6DAA054C4EEAA87.jpg

Does the notebook come with an optical drive?

And the most important question: SSD upgrades. I intend to replace the SSDs with larger and quiker beasts. What connectors does the internal drives have?

RAID: I see that Asus stripes ( RAID 0) the drives which ensures the data is completely lost if one drive fails (nice one Asus!). Has anyone managed to change the RAID settings to another such as RAID1 (mirror)?

Best wishes, z

 

The cylinder is a subwoofer that is included with the laptop.
Mine didn't (I'm in US) but I understand some overseas configs do include an external drive.
The SSDs are proprietary connectors. There are some photos in the other thread, it's worth going through. They are Sandisk drives.
I left my RAID config alone. It does ship with a C: and D: drive however. I was expecting a single 256GB C: drive.

 

In Germany all UX51 came with DVD drive but without the bag.

 

About SSD brand: until now the 2X128GB versions are coming with Sandisk models while the 2x256GB versions are coming with ADATA models.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

And to fill it, it seems like all the units in Sweden are shipped with bag but without DVD drive.

The bag is just mediocre though.. I already have a backpack for this laptop and I would much rather have the sleeve that comes with the ux31, or the dvd-drive. I have no use of the bag

 

Send it to me!!!

 

I wouldn't expect a CSR to ever confirm any type of fan, heating, throttling issue via a normal support channel. That's for any company until they're actually doing something about it (i.e. fixing it, taking swaps, etc.).

 

Sure, if you send me the DVD drive

 

Could you please tell me which system is preinstalled? English or German.
And which type of keyboard? German, too?

 

All german notebooks are always installed with a german OS. But it should be no problem to switch the language.
All german notebooks are always installed with a german keyboard Changing it should be more difficult.

The are two german tests out now (with pics of the keyboard):
- notebookcheck.de
- computerbase.de

 

Ok, thank you for your information.

Because I'm in France and there is only the website amazon.fr sells this machine.
But it is so expensive. 1900 euros for the 2*128GB version and 2200 euros for the version 2*256GB. As a result, I thought to buy it by amazon.de where the price is much correct.

 

You can buy it from the Netherlands for about 1,600 eur. Check Tweakers for the list of suppliers (and whether they'll deliver to France).

No one uses the Dutch keyboard (in fact I have never seen one). All computers are sold with US QWERTY (Local version not lnternational version, so no Alt-Gr nor Euro symbols)

 

thanks. Could I choose an english system and an english keyboard according to you?

 

I don't follow. All Dutch bought computers come with US QWERTY keyboard layouts.

There is no such thing as an English keyboard. Perhaps you refer to a UK QWERTY layout.

I imagine that the O/S is supplied in the Dutch language, although this is not guaranteed and may well come in English. One has to verify with the retailer.

 

Juste like you think. I'm looking for US QWERTY keyboard layout and an English OS.
I've tried to ask some german sitewebs. The system language and keyboard are german.

 

Maybe you are able to download language pack with Windows 8 as for Windows 7.

 

I think the language is part of the O/S for Windows. At least it was in XP.

I'd just buy a Dutch one and then buy a copy of Windows (but I do not know your budget)
Otherwise order one from the UK (Currys.co.uk have one yet would be surprised if they posted abroad)

Currys:
Buy ASUS U500VZ-CN032H 15.6" Laptop - Silver | Free Delivery | Currys
Note that this comes with an i7 3517U which is great because this has VT-D extention. Excellent for those who want to run virtualised O/Ses with direct access to the I/O.

 

On Windows 7 (I have Ultimate version) you can download the language pack from windows update, so you are able to change it by setting, I Think that is even possible on Windows 8.
Maybe some Windows 8 user could check if this possibility still exist.

 

I don't believe that there is realy an ULV in a U500VZ. And it wouldn't be a good thing because the ULV is just half as fast as the i7QM.

 

FWIW My U500VZ was purchased at a large ICT retailer in the Netherlands, and the OS and everything is in English, thankfully.

 

Yes this is possible at least in the Pro version...

 

After giving Asus links to the problems with fan noise, throttling and battery usage, I still get this answer:

Anyone got any way of asking Asus these questions to someone that can read and think rather than ignoring my words and checking if the problems exist in a database noone ever fills in?

 

Yeah, that looks like a computer-generated answer...

One important question to the owners:
is the discrete Nvidia GPU always on or is it sometimes on and sometimes off?

Thanks

 

...and if it's forced off, does that have any impact on battery life or the constant fan?

 

Yes, it saves battery life a little bit, not much, but still...
And the fan that belongs to the dedicated nvidia gpu should stop rotate, I don't know why it wouldn't if the gpu is switched off.

 

That was what I was thinking, why would they put a ULV in this one, seemingly random, model... however e-mailing PCWorld/Currys to check whether this is true they replied with:

I can confirm that the spec for the Asus Zenbook U500VZ is:-
Has a I7-3517U Processor and is 256GB SSD configured

Thank you for taking the time to contact The KNOWHOW™ Team.


So far that's been putting me off buying at the moment and I've resigned myself to waiting until there is more clarity/ options from other sellers available here in the UK.

 

Just ask yourself how do they know that. Yes, from the same specs as you can see on the website which are wrong. Did they confirm the speed of the SSD as 5400rpm? It has i7-3612QM. Everyone in the UK know that staff at PCWorld and Currys are helpless imbeciles and the person who answered your email did not see the box or the system itself so how could they know?

 

It would be rather funny if they did XD

 

Jako, absolutely! I'm going with the 'clueless customer service imbecile' myself, and yes, like you said I doubt they actually checked the box. Probably just re-read it off the website. I would have loved it if they had confirmed the SSD as 5400 but alas, they saved themselves from that embarrassment...

 

I will try on Monday and ask them if the system is available in any store around London so I could see it before I buy. I don't know what is the return policy if I open the box and I don't like the system which I could not see before I bought it.

 

How's the clickpad? I'm curious which way the 2-finger gesture on clickpad scrolls? and is there a way to switch it? Kind of like how the Macbooks changed the two-finger scroll direction on their clickpad, and then provided an option to switch back.

 

Any store that sells Asus should have it on display. Mediamarkt had it on display here (Stockholm). The fan was on and audible...

 

does the x51 support SDXC cards? that would be handy since the flash storage maxes out at 512G (256x2)....

 

Any news for the distribution in Italy? I'm really interested, but I need a regular invoice. Note I could buy through distributors, but I don't see the new UX's on their sites up to now...
For my Italian colleagues... I was interested in the N56VZ before I discovered the new UX's. For this last I saw PCQuadro, DIWO and fotodigit had the best prices here in Italy but I have no feedback about them (apart the last one). Any suggestion?
Thx in advance!

 

The only store in London I've been able to find one in was the Harrods Technology department which is run by PC World and the only place it seems they put their higher specs models on display. I was in a rush so didn't get a chance to look at it properly but as everything else was mislabelled there (17" laptops marked as 15" etc) hard to even be sure it was a U500vz..! If it was it seemed heavier than 1.8kg to me but like I say, I was in a rush...

I need to make a call on a laptop very soon so may not have time to wait and hear where I can get one and if the fans are a major problem, but let me know if you do find one based in London anywhere on display...

 

Does anyone know when the touch screen might be available? I've only seen non-touch for sale.

 

I imagine that they'll await plenty of sales of the non-touch first afore releasing the touch-screen version.
When they released the UX32VD in the Netherlands the i7 IPS version sold out in about a month. The shops were left with i3 non-fullHD versions, which'll sit there until the January sales

 

I purchased the "lite" version of this laptop - with 2x128GB SSD and Windows 8 Standard.

One of the first things I did was to reformat and install my copy of Windows 8 Pro. After installing all the drivers from the Asus support site, I've found two small annoyances, and wonder if anyone else could provide some insight into the proper fix.

1) The touchpad will occasionally go "dead" after the laptop goes to sleep and is awoken again. No mouse cursor is visible whatsoever, and the only fix seems to be rebooting. Is this a known issue? It appears to have cropped up in some forums for other models of Asus laptops - the fix was to install newer drivers. But in this case, I already have the latest drivers installed (according to the support site, anyway).

2) The display appears to automatically dim and brighten at random. Has anyone else encountered this? At first I thought maybe it was automatically brightening when there was more "white" on the screen, but its really unpredictable. Is there some setting I missed, that says "keep it at the brightness I set it at?"

 

There is no dedicated fan, both fans are connected to the same heatpipe.

Have you disabled the light sensor (Fn+A)?

 

Would be also VERY interrested which SDHC cards we could use and how fast the reader is. I also plan to use it as additional storage - eventually for music and photos.

 

According to Notebookcheck review, it support SDXC which should give you 128GB cards with 45mb/s r/w speeds! Great way of adding more storage capacity

 

Mine just arrived yesterday
Just turned it on, clicked for a while and shut it down, then on reboot I got "Your PC's had an error".. good start
It also doesn't light up the screen on wake-up and in a while gives the same Your PC's had an error stuff.

I havent installed any drivers so could be the typical display driver problem
It stopped happening after disabling the Nvidia (and it feels quiter, though it could be an illusion)

Anyway, the noise is audible and it is kind of annoying. Nothing on the levels of my previous Dell L502x but i still hope Asus could work something out
The reds are a bit dull but it might be just the Win8 tiles that are this nuance of red. Right now it's too much trouble to share internet between my company MacBookPro and the Zenbook in order to compare how the screens behave on a same red picture.

The lid is kind of hard to open up, even with two hands there's quite a lot of effort you need to apply
I was also surprised to find out it's wider than the MacBook (the old one) by at least a thumb. The screen itself is another aspect ratio

I can't install any drivers right now due to lack of an optical drive but will do so in two days and see how it behaves, then i'll likely reinstall everything
There is a funny picture on the keyboard a half-running man - half thunderbolt.. wonder what it means

 

Can somebody check if it has a TPM chip, please?
Thank you.

 

called the Currys/PC World to see if there was any u500SV's in stores to have a look and see what kind of processor the UK model really has but the surprisingly helpful guy on the phone said nowhere has them in-store due to the high price (fair enough), he then went on to question why I was looking at this laptop when he believed I should be going for a Mac instead. Infuriating.