ASUS Ultrabook V500CA/S500CA

Since I didn't see an owners forum for this model and I just purchased one about a month ago, I thought I'd start one. I've been very active on the Notebook Review forums for several years as a Sony owner. I got fed up with their lack of support and abandoned that ship after 3 of their machines which I loved.

But I am really digging this ASUS a lot. Nice battery life, great features for the money.

I have uncovered two issues and one annoyance. The first issue is with video artifacts when scrolling in Excel, Word and IE10. I'll post some screen shots soon. The other issue is with high resource use by the Bluetooth driver when using a Jambox speaker or Logitech headphones. The System process in Task Manager or Process Explorer show a constant 25% CPU use. Turn off the Bluetooth device and it drops below 1%.

The annoyance is the inertial scrolling of the touchpad and no way to adjust it or turn it off. I have a partial solution I'll share here when time permits.

So here we go. Any other V500CA or S500CA owners out there?

Gary Shell
aka ScuderiaConchiglia

 

Here's a screenshot of the video artifacts:






Gary

 

I spent over an hour in a chat session with the Asus support folks who were very friendly and helpful. They created a case for me and that's pretty much where the help ended. The folks who took over the case via emails were obviously working from scripts and giving me ridiculous explanations and things to do. "Please reset the BIOS to defaults". But I never changed the BIOS. "Well BIOS changes can happen accidently." What? When was the last time ANYONE ever heard of a BIOS changing itself unless the CMOS battery was bad. That sort of BS ended when I reminded the email "robot" that I was an IT professional and owned the first computer store in Cincinnati in 1976. But I still got pretty much nowhere with the email support folks. I'll use the online chat from here on out.

Now, my findings:
The issue with the inertia on the scroll is still there but a bit better. I had tried the Touchpad_Elantech_Win8_64_VER11591 drivers and they had less inertia. They actually installed a Smart Gesture UI, but it was missing a couple of the options that were in the original package. The online chat person suggested that the ATK Package might need to be updated, and also told me there was a newer Smart Gesture package available and provided a link. That link showed me ALL of the versions of the Smart Gesture package. Something I'd been unable to find via the Asus support web page. Upon close examination of that URL, I found I could get it to display other driver libraries as well! WAY COOL!

Here is the link: support.asus.com.cn/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&s=479&m=Smart%20Gesture&os=36&ft=10 (You will need the requisite http colon slash slash in front of that. I removed it so the forum software would let you see the full url text.)

If you replace the "Smart%Gesture" with "VGA" you get a list of all of the video drivers, "Touchpad" reveals all of the Elantech drivers, "Bluetooth" reveals all the Bluetooth drivers, "ATKpackage" reveals all of the ATKPackage drivers. I am sure there are other keywords, those are the only ones I tried, so far.

Armed with that new revelation, I found there was a ATK Package 1.0.0030 package, newer than what I had (1.0.0027). So I uninstalled 1.0.0027, rebooted, installed 1.0.0030 and rebooted. Uninstalled the Elantech driver. Rebooted. Installed the newest Smart Gesture driver ver. 2.15 and rebooted. The inertia is less of a problem but still there. If you swipe too fast it scrolls much too far. Its better than the version 2.13 for sure and about equal to the Elantech ones. I still wish there was a sensitivity setting or even an OFF switch. We should all lobby Asus for a UI that lets US decide how the scroll works.

To be continued...

Gary

 

part deux...

While playing with the ability to see the full catalog of drivers I found there was a newer Qualcomm Bluetooth Suite. I currently had version 8.0.0.220 so I uninstalled it, rebooted and installed 8.0.0.230 and rebooted. I have a Logitech H800 headset. It can connect using Bluetooth or a Logitech dongle. With the new driver installed and the headphones in Bluetooth mode if I play audio thru the headphones, Task Manager and Process Explorer both show the "System" process (aka "NT Kernel & System") using 25% of the CPU. Turn off the headphones and that drops to 0%. Turn them back on and it shoots up to 25%. Switch the headphones to use the Logitech dongle and the CPU use for "System" is at 0. The new Qualcomm driver is no better than the old one. This really sucks. Because I prefer to use my Jambox speaker and it has ONLY a Bluetooth connection and the CPU spikes to 25% with it too. Sigh...

Not sure why the Bluetooth driver should be so CPU dependent. Anyone else have any clues?

Gary

P.S. I uncovered a MUCH newer video driver which I will try later in hopes it solves the video artifact issue.

 

As promised...

Here is the link that will take you to ALL of the Asus video drivers for Windows 8. Link: ASUS Windows 8 Video Drivers

On that page I found VGA_Intel_Win8_64_VER91810320401 Link: VGA_Intel_Win8_64_VER91810320401.zip
Alas, that one would not install complaining that the hardware was not compatible.

But fear not fellow travelers, on that same page I found this gem, VGA_Intel_Win8_64_VER91710306201 Dated: 7/03/13 Link: VGA_Intel_Win8_64_VER91710306201.zip

Not only did that one install, it appears to have cured my video artifact issues when scrolling in MS Word and Excel.

Gary

 

Hey Gary,

I have an S500CA and like it. Not a fan of Windows 8 and I want to install Windows 7 Pro on it. However I've read that W7 may not install properly because certain drivers may not be available. I don't much care if the touch screen isn't supported in W7 since I never use it. Do you think I have a shot at getting a usable W7 install running on this laptop?

Best regards,
Russell

 

Spend $4.95 and buy a copy of Start8 from Stardock. It gives you back a full blown Start menu and allows the machine to boot to the desktop instead of the tiles. Once you do that 99% of the time you will be hard pressed to tell Win7 from Win 8.

That is a MUCH easier solution than trying to track down and sort out the drivers.

Gary

 

Thanks Gary. I am using Ex7forW8 which boots into the W7 Explorer. It's pretty good because there is no chance of swiping into any W8 elements, but every once in a while it flakes out and goes back to the W8 Explorer. I suspect there is some under the hood quirks with this configuration that causes long hangs and other weird stuff. Best regards, Russell

 

Quick follow-up: as it turns out, and as much as I tried to prevent it, my Asus updated itself to 8.1 today. Ex7forW8 doesn't work on 8.1, so I bought Start8 on your recommendation and it works great. Many thanks.