ASUS U500vz/UX51vz Owners' Lounge!

sorry...double post. Can't figure out how to delete post. (yes, newbie here)

 

Keyboard flex is how much the keyboard flexes (or depresses inward) when you type on it. It is typically more desirable to have little or no flex.

 

Ok, thats very nice to hear. But, is the GT650M completely turned off? And if it is, have you noticed any improvements on battery life? And what do you say about the "fan problem" that many here suffer from?`

Thanks

 

I ordered another LA robe bag for my UX51. I will update you when I found a fitting one. Flokartor is right...none of the 15" bags fitted because 38cm is pretty wide. We focused on MacBook bags which might have been our mistake. But lets see what I can find. Ordered one which is about 1cm too big but apart from that it should be fine. It is also much more stable than the one Flokator ordered.

 

As far as I can tell the GT650M is off, as when not in use even the nvidia module is not loaded.
Here is the powerconsumption stats when in three different scenarious, keyboard backlight off and screen at 70% - my usual setup.
I haven't had time this mornign to do the full 5 mins testing in each situation to get sound result, but for a general indication in should be good enough.

gkos@dynomob:~$ powerstat
Running for 300 seconds (30 samples at 10 second intervals).
ACPI battery power measurements will start in 180 seconds time

Time User Nice Sys Idle IO Run Ctxt/s IRQ/s Watts

idling, no glxgears running, just kde and several apps
09:47:28 1.4 0.0 1.3 97.3 0.0 1 1719 452 12.96
09:47:38 1.1 0.0 1.2 97.7 0.0 2 1607 429 13.10
09:47:48 1.2 0.0 1.3 97.5 0.0 1 1620 440 12.91

started glxgear using GT650M, # optirun glxgears
09:47:58 5.2 0.0 4.0 90.5 0.3 2 11600 951 43.80
09:48:08 10.2 0.0 6.5 83.4 0.0 3 26802 961 43.77
09:48:18 9.9 0.0 6.6 83.5 0.0 3 26690 954 43.86

idling, no glxgears running, just kde and several apps
09:48:38 1.5 0.0 1.1 97.4 0.0 2 1657 441 13.34
09:48:48 1.3 0.0 1.3 97.4 0.0 1 1566 440 13.17
09:48:58 1.2 0.0 1.3 97.5 0.0 1 1536 433 13.04

started glxgears using inbuilt intel4000, # glxgears
09:49:18 2.4 0.0 2.0 95.6 0.0 1 60072 680 15.02
09:49:28 1.9 0.0 1.8 96.3 0.0 3 38489 593 15.27
09:49:38 1.9 0.0 1.7 96.4 0.0 2 45515 596 15.15
09:49:48 1.9 0.0 1.9 96.2 0.0 2 53923 596 15.07
09:49:58 1.9 0.0 1.9 96.2 0.0 2 52009 605 15.22


As you can see, GT650M is a heavy drainer of battery ))

As for the noise, it doesn't bother me, as I usually have music playing in my work environment and the inbuilt speakers are very very good, especially if you have sub running as well.
When idling, my HTC ONE X placed next to the screen with mic directly above the exhaust grill shows 35db

when laying flat on its back on the mousepad indicates 22 db.
The background noise about a meter from the laptop is 18 db.

 

Well, join us and contact Asus directly about the fan noise at idle! It should not need to move that much air with almost nothing going on.

I'm personally not planning on doing any gaming on the laptop, so the GT650 is not why I bought it. However, the U500 is rare in that it has portability, high res IPS, as well as a powerful CPU and plenty of RAM, which is what I wanted. I do run demanding programs, but to buy into some future-proofing as you did is not a terrible idea either. It should last you.

 

I received an disappointing answer for my servicerequest today...

Dear Asus Customer,

Thank you for your email request.

Thee is nothing to do or any way to stop fan working on idle.
It`s within the specifications for this Model.
We have the same unit here and it`s the same like that.


Sincerely / Best Regards


M...

T: +49 1805 010920 (09:00 AM - 06:00 PM, 0.14 € / minute from a landline, mobile max. 0.42 € / minute
F: +49 2102 9599 11

ASUS Computer GmbH
Harkortstrasse 21-23
D-40880 Ratingen
Germany
CEO: Eric Chen

 

Too bad I was considering this laptop but noise is a deal breaker.

 

It's not that noisy IMHO. I prefer a steady fan than one that revs up/down all the time but yes, the minimum fan speed could be a bit slower. As a comparison my previous machine (Vaio SA) had a lower fan noise when idle but doing anything minimally taxing and the noise increased quite a bit. Gaming on the SA meant a roaring fan too, something I haven't been able to reproduce on this machine (perhaps I play the wrong kind of games ;P).

[rant]
Moving topic to something completely different: the more I use Windows 8 the less I like it. The metro interface have simply no reason to exist on a computer used for creation of content, maybe it works well on a tablet used only for media playback or things like that but on a computer it is simply a stupid, incompatible and inefficient interface bolted on the side of a tried and proven one. I tried to adapt as I (and lots of other people) have adapted between different interfaces through the years, AmigaOS/MSDOS command prompt/text interfaces/Windows/OS/2 /Motif/RiscOS and a lot more. Metro is simply crap and FWIW, I have even studied user interface design. Still IMHO of course...
[/rant]

 

I actually already contacted them. They replied that I should install the following update: http://nbtsd.asustreiber.de/Tools/DPTF_V6.0.6.1082.zip

Will try it later.

 

Thank you man for your answers to the questions. You are the only serious member here that have not bought this computer only for gaming. Thats good.
Is your track-pad working well on Linux? I mean, in "Windows" you have to deal with correct drivers and so on, but in Linux it should work out of the box.

Today I played a little bit with the machine in a store and I could not see any problems with the screen showing red orange etc, the only thing that cannot be tolerated on this is "Windows 8". And the trackpad worked sometimes, and sometimes not, but it was a demo ex so...

And the display was a little dark, dimmed, even if the brightness was set to 100%, but maybe it was too bright around the machine? IPS displays should be very bright but this was certainly not...

 

I agree with you 100%. But if I am going to play devil's advocate, the "live tiles" work much better for tablets or any other touch interface, where trying to touch smaller things would be cumbersome. To ease the pain of Windows 8, you just need a start button addition. I've found that it was the one thing that made all the difference.

For anyone curious, I went ahead and requested that I just return my defective UX51 to Xotic. I wouldn't say I'm a satisfied customer though, since it seems kind of unfair to have to pay both the initial shipping (was supposed to be "free") and the return shipping for a defective product that is less than a week old.There is the argument that repairs would have been free, but with the diagnosis time, possibility that ASUS would not "find" the problem, delays, etc., it made the most sense to just return it and place a replacement order.. somewhere else with a better return policy, of course.

 

My experience with Xotic has also not been the best at all. I hope I won't have to return it (and I am even living abroad and will have to do it via friends).
I haven't even got any official document that looks like a signed warranty, it's only a credit card invoice.

@sockfish - what was your defect?

I also did not buy this laptop for gaming. I turned off the nvidia card although to no significant fan benefit, as far as i can tell. But it was one of the very very few that has little weight, lots of RAM, SSD and IPS screen.

I have since made some comparisons on the red. The IPS of the Zenbook does definitely bring reds more the orange spectrum than to the violet one, compared to both LCD screens that i'm using (an old Macbook Pro and an SONY VAIO VPCF1).
Nevertheless they are distinctly red - meaning if I compare them to an orange object on the Zenbook the difference is obvious.

I would still like to do some calibration if i can fetch a good color profile.

 

Hear hear, haha. My thoughts exactly.

I also think that touchscreens are best left to tablets, or maybe true "convertible" laptops (where the screen is on the backside so it can be used with the laptop closed) at most, but I see little benefit in laptops such as ours.

 

That's the Intel Thermal Framework. I guess people have not had much luck with that, but do let us know if it works for you!

 

For me, the big attraction on top of everything else remains the touchscreen capability.
And with Windows 8, this would be just the right point in time to have such a machine.

After paying so much of money, I would like to get something novel - not just better specs for the usual components.

 

I just recieved my asus u500 today! Awesome little machine so far, so I guess I'm joining the club. I'm going to use this machine mainly for business/work purposes and the screen, quad-core but still reasonably energy efficient and form factor are what pulled me in. The GT650 is an added bonus and a game now and then won't hurt at all!

I wanted to give my gratitude to Terpen Tijn! He saved me having to look up a lot of information and explained everything very well! I do want to add to his post. I used it to re-install Windows 8 so I have a clean start and removed the partition hell that's on the laptop. The tips to make a backup stick and recover your product keys are great, made the whole affair a lot less frighting. I'm quite well versed in computers and windows and such, but having a way back is always a good strategy!

Sadly, I was unable to get into the Intel RAID manager during boot (normally this is ctrl-I ?). So I couldn't remove the 16GB RAID set that's at the end of the SSD's. I suspect it's there as a form of overprovisioning, so maybe it's better to leave it in place anyway. This is a common practice with SSD's and do so with most of my SSD's. It very much depends on the controller though and having received 2 of the sandisk versions, not much is known about them.

But what I want to add to Terpen Tijn's post is that you can download and use a Windows 8 ISO file. If you download the normal windows 8 ISO, not the PRO version, you can install it and it's automatically activated without you having to do anything at all. If you search for the following ISO " en_windows_8_x64_dvd_915440 " that should do the trick. Or at least, it did so for me (Bought the laptop from 4launch in The Netherlands). Also most drivers are there out of the box, so LAN and WLAN work, your display works, etc. Of course, I do advise to update these to the manufacturer drivers immediately, but at least your connected.

 

I thought I'd be regretting not having the touch screen, but after using Windows 8, I find myself NEVER using the live tiles. Anything I am interested in opens up in desktop mode anyway, plus the touch model will come with glossy screen instead of a matte.

@Jorram - Everytime my 650M gets turned on, I get the BSOD, even on a fresh install of W8 using any combination of drivers. I'm not going to spend the next year figuring it out or having it repaired, I'd rather have it exchanged since I fall in the 15-day return period. I've seen some horror stories of people trying to have Asus or the retail store work things out and it takes the better part of 6 months.

 

Does anyone know when the Touch version is likely to be release. I have been holding back on buying the non-touch version but don't know how much longer I can wait. I've contacted Asus several times but haven't received one reply to date.

 

The touch screen on the Asus u500vz is a very important factor for me. For anyone developing a Windows 8 app, a Win7 touch-based kiosk, or other touch-enabled application, this is an ideal workstation. It is so much easier to test touch inputs and gestures on the same machine after every code change, rather than having to switch to a different device every time.

Even at the Microsoft build conference this year, Steve Ballmer held up the Acer S7 as an example for this. But I much prefer the u500vz -- with a larger 15.6 full hd touch screen, 2x faster i7 quad processor, more SSD storage, and 2x-3x more memory.

I'm definitely taking a longer-term view of touch screens and Metro apps, particularly for the amount of money I'm putting into a machine like this. How long will I be using this laptop - One year? Two years? Three? Five? Clearly touch is just an "option" today, with only a small number of Metro apps. But over the lifetime of this laptop, the number of apps will only increase, and touch will become a more and more integral feature that just makes sense.

And practically speaking in today's terms - I have two young children, and they already think that *any* computer that doesn't have a touch screen is just plain "broke". And honestly... looking through their eyes I can't help but agree.

So... as a developer (and father) the touch screen on the Asus u500vz Touch simply puts it at the top of my list. Now if only someone in the US had it available for me to buy...

 

Unfortunately I have to completely agree with Megol’s comment concerning WIN 8. It is a hack. Disable the Lock Screen. Turn off all the Tiles so they are not sucking up resources and use it just to get to the Desktop. Install icons for everything you use on the Desktop. Works for me.

Here are some additional thoughts on the UX51VZ-XH7/WIN 8.
UX51 Negatives:
• The network connector plug is upside down so it’s very hard to press the connector release to unplug the cable without lifting the entire unit up off the table. This is a real PITA.
• The mini-vga adaptor works OK with my external NEC monitor but looks a little noisy at times. Will have to keep an eye on this.
• No WIN8 Product Key is included with the system. This is a first for me!
• The indicator lights for power and charging on the sides of the UX51 are too small and dim to see unless you hold the machine up to your face.
• The power brick is terrible – anybody know where a smaller more functional one can be purchased?

UX51 Positives:
• My external USB keyboard and mouse work fine.
• CCleaner installs and runs fine on WIN8.
• Super light and solid chassis with no flex anywhere.
• Great keyboard.

WIN 8 Gripes:
• Hard to know when Wi-Fi is on and disabling it with “Airplane Mode” is really confusing.
• Deleting Metro apps using right mouse button only deletes the tile and does not actually delete any of the files for the program. The usual uninstall programs function in Control Panel does not list any apps. There are thousands of files in a folder named WindowsApps where Windows stores all apps. All of these are system files and are very hard to delete permanently and I had to use TakeOwnershipEx to get rid of the ones I do not want. Unbelievably this appears to be the only way to reclaim the space used by these applications.
• Microsoft Windows/Office update does not work very well with Win 8 currently.
• The track pad can be a little squirrely.
• Charms are constantly popping up even after disabling the corner activations – ARGGGGGG!

Hope this helps.

 

)Thanks. I am not a big fan of any trackpad and instead prefer to use mouse. The TP is "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad" and works in default Kubuntu 12.10 installation,. You can tweak pretty much any option that is supported by synaptics driver in X. However, I still have to look into how to configure pinch-to-zoom, rotate etc. Not that I will be using it, but rather to have it working ))
The TP is big, as in most modern laptops, and from time to time I was getting annoyed after accidentally palm moving the cursor.
There are three ways you can go about it.
1. enable Palm detection in synaptics
# synclient PalmDetect=1 PalmMinWidth=3 PalmMinZ=200

2. Automatically block the TP when you are typing
# syndaemon -i 1.7 -d -t -K

3. Disable the TP altogether ))


The screen is very good and as I mentioned previously, I have it dimmed to 70-80% all the time. Hold my u500vz next to friend's Mac Book Pro with retina display yesterday, and IMHO the colours on Asus are colder and on Apple warmer. Displays are equally bright, but the reflections on MBP are just horrible.

 

For us that like the desktop "mode" of Windows 8 I can recommend installing the free Classic Shell ( Welcome to Classic Shell ) and disabling the Metro edge actions. I also disabled the Metro gestures "toggle charm bar" and "toggle menu bar" in the Asus Smart Gesture configuration program to avoid switching to Metro mode in normal use.

 

To those of you who miss the start menu in Windows 8... I made some research and found these:

StartIsBack
Homepage: StartIsBack.com - real start menu in Windows 8
Shareware.
The best available solution IMHO. It brings back the start menu "with very special magic": Microsoft actually didn't completely remove the start menu from Windows 8, the code is still there in the explorer shell, and StartIsBack uses it without replacing any files. It's the most native and weightless startmenu you can find. It keeps the Metro UI if you wish to.

Windows 7 explorer for Windows 8 (Ex7forW8)
See this forum topic: Windows 7 explorer for Windows 8
Freeware.
Early work of the developper of StartIsBack. Brings back the start menu natively but has some disadvantages: the Metro UI is completely disabled and therefore some personnalization options aren't available anymore.

Classic Shell
Homepage: Welcome to Classic Shell
Freeware.
What this program only does is skip the Metro UI on windows startup and display a start orb. This is more of a tweak. The Metro UI is kept so no removed features, but on the other hand there is no way to make it look exactly like Windows 7, there is always this Classic Shell logo and the start menu isn't working exactly the same.

ViStart
Homepage: Windows 8 Start Menu, Windows 7 Start Menu
Freeware.
Basically the same as Classic Shell - skips the Metro UI - but with less options, and I think it's only a pinned app actually.

Start8
Homepage: Start8 for Windows® 8 - Bringing back the Windows Start menu
Shareware.
Brings back the start menu but not natively (dunno how it works though, haven't been able to test it on my system). Keeps Metro enabled if you want to.


I recommend StartIsBack, but then after all it's up to you

 

Couldn't have said it better myself!

 

Are there any retail chains that have this laptop on display? Or any place around Tampa, Fl?

 

How did it go?

 

I'm faced with a strange problem, and I'm starting to wonder if maybe some reviewers encountered the same thing when they reported bad battery life.

<sup>I have reinstalled Windows 8 as stated above and used mostly the drivers provided on the asus website and sometimes a bit newer one or the one that comes with windows update.

When I boot my laptop, and set my power management scheme, all works.

The CPU throttles nicely and this is reflected correctly in the task manager performance tab.</sup>

I have just found a topic for the ux31a which describes the same problem. So I'm thinking it must be an asus tool which causes this. As stated in that topic I will investigate to see what I can find. Probably best to report if you are having the problem too but to discuss it in the real topic : http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/695129-power4gear-hybrid-keeps-resetting-itself-100-minimum-processor-state.html

There is a similar thread here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/687758-asus-ux32a-fan-goes-off-off-9.html

update--
Seems that the Asus Smart Gesture is the culprit. Since I killed those processes everything is behaving exactly as I set it and keeps doing so. Before it would keep jumping back or even switching my settings for on battery or plugged in around!

Will keep testing. But for now, it's gone from my u500..... Please fix this ASAP Asus, this is probably the reason reviews gave this laptop a bad battery rating!

update----
Currently testing the newest Elantech drivers. They stupidly do not provide a direct download link like Synaptics . But softpedia has an awnser for that. They seem to be a lot newer then what asus provides us (For the u500 or any other laptop). Hopefully this has a fix for the problem within them. If you also wish to test. Please remove the Asus Smart Gesture and download the drivers using the following link : http://drivers.softpedia.com/dyn-search.php?search_term=elantech&Submit=Search&lastupd_filter=0&results_per_page=20&sort_field=2 The newest one should always be listed on top. I installed the 11.6.6.002. They also install a utility which, from what I can remember, provides all the same features as the asus tool. Including multi-touch gestures.

Further it provides an extension to the "mouse" settings tab of windows. A few more features seem to exist then with the Asus driver. For instance, you can turn off the Elan software when an USB mouse is connected. Or change the keyboard timeout value when typing. Also in the installation directory there are tools called "ETDDeviceInformation.exe" and "ETDHValueMonitor.exe". Both nice tools to read the values your touchpad is sending and to test some stuff.

 

On another note, I also opened a support ticket with Asus because of the idle fan noise. Either they should have used fans that are virtually silent when idle, or they should have allowed the fans to spin down and only come up when needed. How can they build such a great notebook (really, it's awesome!) and then have such a fatal flaw in it. :S It should be an easy fix, only spin up the fans when the temperature rises above say 55 degrees and not have them start automatically like they do now. The Tj Max for this CPU is 105 degrees I believe.... lots of headroom!

My 4.2Ghz overclocked desktop from 3 years ago and my 5 year old notebook makes less noise idle.... :S

 

They found a fix for the fans in the other huge u500 thread.

 

Do you see an option anywhere for "reverse" ("natural") scrolling on the trackpad? So that when you are scrolling on the track pad it moves the same way as if you were touching the screen...

 

Yes, there are options for "intertial scroll" "continuous scroll" and "reverse". I believe the last one is the one you are looking for.

Also things like mousepad deactivation when typing are all configurable. You can even set a manual timeout.

 

Does anybody else have the following peculiar problem:

I can't use a mouse on my second USB port on the left (the one towards the back)
Normally I would just assume there's a hardware problem with the port but:

- the mouse lights up (it is semi-transparent), meaning some current is flowing
- if i plugin a harddrive in the same USB3 port, it works alright

And just in case you'd think the mouse is the problem:

- my mouse works on the other ports
- i've tried another mouse and it also doesn't work only on this port

I see two possible reasons:

1.drivers
2. somehow the portable HDD and the mouse use different infterface channel from the port - one of those works, the other maybe not

If it's the latter, i would need to change my laptop, so i was wondering if anyone has had that same issue before
i will go install the latest usb3 driver from Terpen's list meanwhile...

 

Yes, I had this problem when i tested a couple of weeks ago. All other ports but this one worked, but a usb-memory worked.

 

The USB-3 driver linked at Terpen's tutorial gives me "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements to install this software". Huh? I thought it was the chipset thats not recognized but went on and installed the chipset driver from Asus as well. Same result...

 

It might be the USB power management. Laptops can power down USB ports to conserve power. Try this fix:

How to Disable USB Power Management | eHow.com

 

i think I turned that off from the energy properties panel but will check again. also, if this were the case, the usb-drive wouldnt be working either, no?

it's not a killer issue but it's a special kind of annoying

p.s. and it still troubles me that the USB-3 driver won't install (maybe it's cause i'm trying on the factory win8, not a clean win7 as Terpen.... still it should work)

edit: bamaster, does your usb port exhibit the same problem? If not, are you still running the factory install?

 

Jorram, that USB3 driver is for Windows 7 indeed. Not to worry, because Windows 8 has native USB3 support, meaning it needs no driver at all.

Interestingly, the same USB port works fine with my USB mouse here (that is, under Windows 7)! So it's a Windows 8 thing. :>

 

I don't have the problem with this machine but I've had it before on other machines. I have mine configured in the power plan options, too.

 

Hi guys,

I'm giving this laptop a serious consideration for my next notebook. I've been debating between the UX51VZ and the UX32VD. Of course, the UX51VZ has some advantages: Quad core, better graphics, more maximum ram. Disadvantages: propiretary SSDs whereas on the UX32VD you can put it a standard SSD (I guess I can live with that).

My question is this. How is the keyboard flex on the UX51? It looks to be pretty bad on the UX32VD as you can see here:

<iframe width='560' height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ACvXjykDXoU" frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Yes there is some keyboard flex, but with regular force as you type on the keyboard you will not notice any flex at all.

Trust me, this is not an issue.

 

So is it better than in that video of the UX32? Look at 1:10 where he's just pressing the space bar, it's quite springy!

Sent from my LG-P930 using Tapatalk 2

 

not so well; it`s apparently a bios update i don`t need.

 

Thank you everybody for giving so much useful information about the computer, it's really appreciated!

I have one question before I actually buy this machine: Has anybody tried connecting it to a high resolution ext. monitor (2560x1440) through HDMI? I remember some news about the new Intel HD4000-drivers and that they would enable support for even higher resolutions.

 

I thought you need a displayPort or thunderbolt port for higher than 1920x1200 through HDMI.

Sent from my LG-P930 using Tapatalk 2

 

HDMI 1.4 does support higher resolutions in the specifications.

 

Sorry, yes there is a BIG difference, just tested it. No flex when pushing the buttons, only the area between the buttons (and u have to push it a bit).

 

Does anyone know how to disable the bluetooth adapter?
Thanks in advance.

 

Device Manager? Easiest way to get there is to press Windows-X.

Maybe easier to do the Windows 8 way.
From the Metro interface, swipe to get to the Charms Bar. Click on Settings, then Change PC Settings. Under Wireless you can toggle the Bluetooth and Wifi adapters.

Simple search in YouTube shows how
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vuMKnbbKsA

 

anyone knows if you can connect a 120hz external screen via the mini-vga ?