Asus M50VM Montevina, NV 9600M GS Review

One more thing, is the video card in the M50VM replaceable? i was reading something about the MXM-II or something like that?

 

Hey guys! I've been a long time reader of NBR, and have been tracking the latest ASUS laptop reviews for quite a while too. So thanks a lot for all the great info. Anyhoo, my Dell is starting to break into pieces after just under 2 years of heavy use (by heavy I mean heavy, I'm a CS student and my lappy never idles recompiling sources from svn all day/night long)

So now I'm trying to find something more reliable and something I can have fun with over the Sunday mornings (playing games of course). So a couple of questions about this new M50:
- How hot and loud does it run under load (max CPU/GPU)?
- Does the fan EVER stop when idling at all?
- Would the ASUS warranty be void if the HDD is replaced?

Oh, and just a couple of comments about the 32bit systems cuz i see lots of people misundertand the 3gb limit - 3 gb is the max that an application can see, though the system will use all 4. So one single game won't use more than 3gb, but the other gig will be available to someone else. AFAIK if you have XP with 4gigs it will tell you that only 3 are available but again, the Properties screen is by itself an app and sees 3 gigs max. Hope this makes sense

 

Hello Pal, I suggest you get Windows XP Service Pack 3 instead of Vista. Last week we got 5 laptops stolen, so this week I got a couple of used notebooks with Vista. Dell 1420, Vaio ?? and a Compaq ??, all of them with Vista from Factory. On the Dell I got a very unpleasant Activation Product popup after SP1 that didn't worked, even with the original Serial (called Microsoft). The VAIO did not recognize the Wireless G at home even after installing new drivers and finally the Compaq started with a Blue Screen of Death. That was it for me, as my first real Vista work, so I got all of them XP Pro. No more problems and no more trouble doing updates. I gave Vista a chance for 2 days, reinstalling and updating without any luck, but I couldn't waste more time with failed updates and untrusty performance, you never know which updates are going to fail and when are you going to get the BSOD again.

Next week I am going to get my new Asus M50Vm-B1 from GentechPC and I will get rid of Vista as soon as I get it. It's not worth your time trying to make it work. If you go with vista, good luck and be prepared for some deep research on how to solve its flaws. Some people claim that they need Vista on the laptops to use it at College, thats ridiculous too.

 

i pity people who have issues with vista

 

No. See ASUS Info Booth_FAQ, question about the GPU replacement.

Do you have a source for that? The way I understood this limitation, the entire addressing space of 32-bit is limited to 4GB minus memory-mapped devices, which makes for 3.something GB. And not application specific. Your explanation would indeed make sense if the applications would live in a "relative addressing" space where the 0 address is offset with a certain amount. Still, I'd like some references to read.

 

thanks, now about the pg up n pg down buttons on page 60

 

Well this is the main idea of how programs work: no matter how much memory you have, a 32 bit system gives 3Gb of RAM to your application (even if you physically have 256Mb), and the other 1Gb is kept for kernel. Thus those messages in Windows that "you are running low on memory" that come from the OS, not the application that went nuts! So yeah, you kind of right about the 0 address offset for each app. The only thing is that there's no offset and a certain amount of memory, all the addresses are virtual and it's up to system where it takes the memory from. So if your app started from 0x0 and system mapped it to 0x16, it doesn't mean that 0x2 for the app will mean 0x18 for the system - it can be anything, depending on the availability of the memory, e.g. 0xh4 or whatever... it's Random Access Memory after all

Just fyi, 4Gb is not a physical limit for 32 bit systems, even Windows (NT branch) uses all the memory that you give it, say 16Gb, but again a single app will only see 3Gb. Linux kernel could do it since almost forever (as long as I know it at least)

Finally, memory mapped files and devices are treated just like separate processes, so say your program creates a file in memory or a virtual device, or you connect a real device that has to be mapped into memory - this is all the same, but in the last scenario, the driver of that device is what the OS gives 3Gb of virtual space... So system only keeps the "list" (figurally speaking) of such processes, which takes (guess what?) 32 bits of data per process (maybe more, but the amount is insignificant). So no matter if you have such devices, if you have 4Gb, you still can use them all - just multitask

PS. This was all related to MS 32bit OSs, Linux is very configurable and can behave in different ways depending on how you build it.

PPS. There always have been limitations for different versions of Windows that MS made purpously to distinguish say "Home XP" from "Professional XP" - this is just the marketing thing...

PPPS. Oh, this idea is called Physical Address Extension (PAE), and I would not recommend reading about it from sources other than the creator of the OS itself: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

PPPPS. Sorry about the long message and too many Post Scriptums

 

Oh, alright, I know about PAE. But I've read in various places that its implementation is rather buggy, so I don't know whether to recommend it...

 

Well, it seems that MS enabled it in Vista by default And I assume as with all MS products it can't be disabled, so we are "stuck" using it lol

 

Maybe they fixed it for Vista. I need to do a bit of reading on this.

 

I'd just like to say that this thread is awesome.

I've spent many, many hours but I have finally read all 61 pages and am very tempted to get the Asus M50Vm-B1 as my freshman college laptop.



I quoted the post above because I too can relate to him and would love answers to those questions.

Any insight is appreciated.

 

I debated the M50Vm - B1 for university, and as of now, I havent regretted it, at all! I too, have read all 50+ of these pages, plus hundreds more, Its great for casual pc gaming, it can play Crysis, at physics medium, textures at high, comfortably. Its light, quiet and cool when gaming. Defiantely worth the movie

 

what settings can m50vm-a1 play gears of war, mass effect, fear, portal, bioshock, call of duty, and doom 3

 

Can anyone link me to the drivers for this laptop for XP?

 

They are in the first post, near the bottom.

 

You'll be able to play at least on medium settings, 1024 x ?, 2X AA, High Textures, 2X Antisotropic, Shadows low-med.

I hate shadows, they always slow the games down.
I'm gonna get my M50Vm-B1 on sunday and I'll test mass effect and bioshock to see how they work. They must look amazing.

I got Mass effect and bioshock on 360 but I don't have an HDTV.

 

guys i have just bought one of these... all i can say is...

FANTASTIC!

its the M50Vm-X1, but my word its super still. i cant wait to install COD4,etc.

Thanks to the guys in here i made the perfect choice... and thank God fro d guidance too. its already out of stock in Newegg. restocking on the 28th

 

do you have the keyboard lag problem?

 

Congrats on the purchase! I wasn't so lucky here, so waiting till at least Aug 21 (should be restocked then), oh well at least there's time to research more

So I hope you could answer these simple questions: Does the fan ever stop if not under load? How hot/ loud does it get when playing latest games?

 

You can use the key on the laptop for the 64bits edition. You just need to get a 64bit DVD by any mean

 

got mine JUST now, still at work, playing with it regardless, love it.

Thanks GenTech!

 

i didnt notice any yet bro and i used it in the airport on msn and some forums. but i now starting to use it

Thanks man.. i wish everyone could get in on these lappys. I hope you get thru with the purchase.

No probs , But i didnt load any intensive games as yet, but when you leave it to idle, it is veryyyyy quite, i was suprised. I was in my living room without a fan/air con and u wasnt hearing it. It did get a lil hot, because that room temp is like 32C (rel hott for systems). When i went in my room with ac, and i was messing around with settings, i had it on my lap and it was just slightly warm and that was during activity.

It doesnt even get hot as to say how the 700usd HP's get. I coulda swear i was going to get burnt with my cousin's one. Plus, as mentioned, the heat is driven at the sides (rightside). soon when i play games, maybe this week sometime (i bought a lot more toys so im unpacking them an messing around a lot!) i will get back to you all

 

Thanks a lot, I now have no doubts buying this thing. It gets almost 3 hours under Vista, so I prolly can squeze another hour or so under Linux with effects turned off.

PS. 32C in the room - wow, I would die if I had to stay in that room... 20-22C in mine (oh Canadian weather), no AC required

 

From what I've read, it says it gets not so warm when playing a GPU intensive game with very little fan noise. By warm I mean, a little bit of heat, not anything that could be considered a problem at all or even bother when placing on your lap. When using it for word processing or internet, there's no heat or noise at all. Some people are impressed to a have such a cool computer.

I'll post my comments next week after my initial evaluation of the computer. I can't wait to test it sunday.

 

no probs man!

yup and suprisingly it does get a good 2hours+ with max setting on in battery mode. i still digging up in it because this is my first lappy to own.

yes, 32 is very hott, but im here in the Caribbean so we hadda live with it. But man, doesnt CAN get a bit hott now in the summer? i was up their a few years a back and it was high 20's low 30's! its cooling down now?

I am very suprised its sooo quite and running cool. I had it running a while just now, and i took of my desktop system and i couldnt notice it at all!

im gonna try and load some codecs and NFS PS on it tonight once i got the time and let you guys know how that goes. I need to setup a lil router as well!

 

Anyone have any trouble with the WLAN light being lit when it shouldn't? It seems like if I come out of sleep, it will be lit up even though I have my WLAN turned off both with the physical switch and then the software switch fn f2. Anyone else have this issue?

 

I'm not sure about this model, but my previous Asus laptop had this (and other lights except the power and HDD) controlled by the software. I actually had it set up to blink only when there was traffic coming in. So if it's still the case with Asus laptops, I would believe there's a problem with the windows driver that controls that light.

Btw, if you have a live disc of Linux, you could try booting it, and then going to /proc/acpi/asus/(LED or smth like that) and if that directory exists, then the lights are programmatically controllable and thus there's a problem with the driver not "waking up" properly

 

no probs here lol...

the only thing i dont like is that the speakers are a bit soft... mind you the quality of the sound is amazing but it isnt loud.

does anyone know how to make it louder?

 

i just got my m50vm-a1 with vista 64bit and im wondering if anyone knows where i can get the 64bit drivers?

edit: nevermind! my driver cd that came with the m50 lets me choose which drivers/utilities to install! i wasted so much time lol

 

yeah the speakers are very soft, but if you use headphones it is VERY loud

 

OHHH i see i never used headphones on im.

BTW just played nfs ps and my max my CPU cores reached was 54C (used CoreTemp). This was in my hott 32C living room. i know my lappy got a good burn in now literally!

but suprisingly i coulda rest it on my lap and use it all that time! only around the vent was hott.

BTW i ran it on high everything. Shadows on low and it was billinear with no AA

 

Interesting, 54 under load is almost too good
Do you happen to have Gears of War? that's the game I'm mostly looking for to play (finally found something original in the shooting genre), it'd be great to see what settings one can play it on.

Also, does Express Gate save settings? like Skype account details etc?

 

I confirm that under full load runs about 52 degrees (was playing Crysis)

 

In a hot as hell basement probably like 85+F ambient (LAN), I played TF2 for several hours (anistropic and AA), and the 9600M GS never got above 69C.

 

enby
yup, its too sweet!
urm yea i do but i dont really want to load it. But, since you wish for me to, i will look for it tmrw and install it once i find it and get the time bro!

I think it does, because everytime i accessed it, it asked me to save data from this session. (i used it three times for a total of 5mins )


Wufei i wouldnt doubt you. my room temp is near that and after i check my GPU about 5min after i ended NFS, it was around 46C. (using GPUZ)

 

Yeah, I really love the thermal design on this. All the heat comes out the side vent (and there's a lot of heat that does under load haha), so there's pretty much no heat underneath it!

 

i just got the M50VM today but the screen seems to be quite dim, which i think it should not be, looking at various sources, and reviews. does anyone have the same problem? is there a way to fix it? or is it i just got a faulty screen?

 

Have you tried function F6 to increases brightness? Turning off the ambient light sensor should also help a bit (function+a)

 

that does not seem to make a difference but the stange thing is that it is brighter when it is starting up but just before it goes to the login bit it just dims. i searched up the problem, and there seems to be a problem similar to mine when using ubuntu but i am using Vista so i don't know how that works out.

 

Are you sure you disabled the ambient light sensor? That software wouldn't have started to dim the screen until you're saying it does.

 

I got the same issue with an old compaq with XP. It started bright and dimmed later. You should check power management software. Sometimes I got low brightness with charger on and very bright screen without the charger. Really weird. Check your internal settings.

 

Check power4gear xtreme, each power mode has it's only brightness settings.

 

Yeah, brightness will depend on the power profile. Before you log in, P4G has not started up so the power profile has not been enforced. When it starts up, the profile is enforced, and brightness dims.

It can also be the ambient light sensor, for similar reasons (control program starting up after login).

 

hey guys, im not sure exactly sure if there is something wrong with my
m50vm-a1.

i got it about 3 days ago, and then installed all the recommended windows vista updates (about 25 of them).

the problem is that now every time I shut down the laptop or boot it up and during the windows screen, where it usually says Welcome, it will say "Configuring Updates 2 of 3" or "Configuring Updates 3 of 3".

After the updates are done configuring, it'll either shut down the laptop normally or log into windows normally. Is this supposed to happen?

 

If that happens every time you boot it, then no, it's not supposed to happen... I would try and remove the updates, or give MS a call if nothing helps

My bro got a Sony laptop which is pretty hard to roll back to XP, and had this kind of update issues since the very beginning, I ended up disabling the updates at all - afterall at some point it will catch a virus/trojan and become unusable anyway, so why bother updating

And then people say that there's nothing wrong with Vista :S Reminds me of the Apple commercial where Vista stands up (like on those AA meetings) and goes: "I've been error free for nearly a week...". Mac: "Oh! Good for you!". Then Vista goes again: "I've been error free for nearly a week... I've been error free for nearly a week........"

 

AFAIK it should configure the updates right after the first reboot done after the updates have been installed, but I am not sure about this.

Maybe the updates went bad. You could try a System Restore to a point before you installed the updates, and if that fixes the problem, then install updates one by one and see which causes the problem.

 

okay, i'll try that.

also one more thing, when my computer starts up after a complete shut down or once i get it out of hibernate/sleep mode, my hard drive makes a few loud squeal sounds. then when it logs back into windows, it runs silently, is this normal?

 

Yeah, normal - heads fully parking/unparking... Not sure what you mean by loud though

 

Are you sure it's the HDD? It may be the optical drive. If the HDD makes loud sounds, it may be faulty (but of course it depends on your definition of loud).

 

if its the optical drive, is that normal? and where is the hard drive located physically in this laptop?