*** Asus U45JC Owner's Lounge ***

Can someone tell me what they mean the build quality is not so good in the area with the battery?

And can you disable the whining sound if you do have it? Is the whining sound the one where most i3 laptop processors have?

Can someone confirm me the actual weight of this laptop without and with the battery? I'm pretty sure with the actual battery is the actual weight correct?

I see 5.1 lbs on xoticpc but 4.6lbs on other sites...

 

Just got my Asus U45JC-A1 today -- found an open box special at a good price. Looks pristine to me, but had obviously been opened and repacked. No marks, no issues, so I'm happy. Price was right.

First impressions are good. Build quality seems fine to me. Everything worked great right out of the box. Burned the 5 recovery DVD's straight away and uninstalled some of the junkware. Keyboard is decent. Screen has the narrow angles common to almost all notebooks these days, but looks good otherwsie. Colors seem good and true, everything sharp and clear. I love the 1366x768 resolution myself (I may be in the minority on that). Helps my aging eyes and is well matched with low-mid range gfx cards.

I have a nice, very sleek and slim MSI X-340 with a 13.3" 1366x768 screen which I use for many hours a day, nearly every day, and love it. Almost the perfect size. But I felt the 14" w/G310 would be OK, too, and the faster processor and GPU would help with my photography and video work and casual gaming.

Happily, the U45 is fairly slim itself and only a little bit larger than the X-340, maybe 5/8-3/4 inches, hxw, definitely less than 1 inch in any dimension. So still the nearly perfect size for me. Much nicer keyboard than the X-340, too. (Also about 2 lbs heavier.)

The aluminum top looks great and is very thin. The palm-rest and case look great as well. The dimpled touch-pad is OK. I generally use a mouse, but I had no problems with it. Worked as well or better than any others I've tried. Definitely like that you can set it to auto-disable when a mouse is plugged in.

I like the port placements, like the vent on the left (back would be OK, too). The DVD drive seems good for a slim design and works well. Indicator lights a wee bit bright (also very common these days), but I can live with it. Overall, a nice design and very pleased with it.

Got this mainly for the i3-370M and the Optimus setup w/the G310M GPU w/14" screen. Seems snappy enough so far. Loaded up a game ("Two Worlds" RPG) just for a quick test (as I'm very familiar with it on other systems) and it runs fine and looks very nice. The G310M should be fine for my needs. (I have a gaming rig w/far more powerful card, but it's also big, heavy, and not too portable.)

The speakers are tolerable, but you'll need headphones or externals for good sound. Battery life in early tests looks to be around 6 hours doing a mix of things, but up to 8 hours if doing light work and taking some care. Need to play around more, though, to be sure. But definitely darn good for the performance pkg at hand here.

Lots of nice features (HDMI, card reader,3 USB ports, Opt drive, etc.), Optimus gfx (which seems to work great), good design, decent build quality, long battery life, sleek pkg, brushed aluminum top, yada yada yada. After one day, I'm happy to say the U45 has met or exceeded my expectations.

Still have not messed around with the S.H.E. tech yet to see how that affects things. One thing I did notice is that the various power settings are horrible and need to be tweaked right away. Some of the desktop backgrounds and color themes used look terrible as well. I stayed with "Entertainment" so far until I have time to fix the other modes. It looks nice and performs well. Really, not sure what they were thinking. Some of the other modes would scare you off from this rig if you did not understand the tech.

Boot times w/Win 7 are fast and everything seems to be running well, so I'm looking forward to trying out some more games, some video stuff and so on over the next few days.

Thanks to everyone here for all the good info shared!

 

Hey where did you bought your laptop bron5 and how much? Did you get 5400rpm? Also, does it feel really light?

 

(Also answering some of your other questions (via PM) here, as well, as others may be interested.)

I bought mine from Newegg. It was an "open box" return. I took a chance because the price was ~$200 less than a new one. They only had one at that price. Got lucky, I guess, because it seems OK.

It seems pretty light. about 5 lbs with the battery, maybe a little less. I did not notice anything, but went and checked and if I shake the laptop a bit there's a little play (very little) in the battery, but I never noticed it in normal use. Not a problem in my opinion.

So far, no whining sound at all. Fairly quiet. A "whoosh" from the fans now and then - barely noticeable.

The size is perfect for me, but that's a very subjective thing. I have a 13.3" as well and it's just a bit bigger. But I do like the larger screen and it's still very portable. Much smaller than a 15.6" rig.

Good luck!

Bron

P.S. Yes, I got the 5400 500 GB drive. It would be easy to install a 7200 or an SSD, but the 5400 is fine for my purposes.

 

So now I know (I think) why my 'open box' return U45jc-A1 was returned. The contrast ratio is off on the display and it causes some problems. Basically it's way too contrasty and you lose detail in the very white and very dark areas of an image and things like light web page backgrounds. You don't notice it on the desktop and for many things as the added contrast actually helps some things (like light text on darker background).

This has caused me some great concern as part of the use for this notebook is photo and video work. It showed up in somr games, too, where light effects were "off" i.e. too bright and loss of detail again. (But, as it turns out, this was when the Intel gfx were being used.) So bad, that I was considering returning this notebook myself.

However, after spending many hours today fooling with it, I think I might be OK, though I'm still mulling it over. First, I went into the Intel graphics monitor and turned the contrast down to 40 (that's as far as is allowed for some reason?) and I also turned the gamma down to .6 (both of these values arrived at after lots of tests and trial and error). This gave me a decent range of values such that things improved greatly. Still a little too dark at very low end, but that's not uncommon these days, sadly, with the newer LCD panels. Main thing is, though, the way too bright highlights and loss of detail was cured. Colors look good and everything now looks normal, page backgrounds are correct, and so on. Still, it is a bit worrisome to have to make these adjustments, though i have had other notebooks before with similar issues.

Second, the lighting effects in games worried me, but I found out that for some reason, the Optimus seemed to not be engaging the 310M and was using the intel gfx instead. Once I set the Nvidia 310M as the preferred gfx card for the game in question, the problem went away and everything looked fabulous. So no issue there.

The acid test was Painkiller Black edition which is a very dark game, usually needing some adjustment on nearly all notebooks (using in-game video options). Indeed, it needed a little tweaking, but looked great after some minor adjustments. Two Worlds which is a more "normal" RPG style game, also looked superb after making sure the 310M was engaged. So no issues on the gaming side, I don't think.

Everything looks fine now, so I'm leaning towards keeping it, since it has a full warranty and I got a considerable discount ($200) off the regular price. But I can easily see why someone would have returned it.

Now if I can just figure out the way too complicated power settings -- SHE or no SHE, "balanced" or "poweer4gear" (4 modes), there seem to be a zillion possible combinations. However, I find I'm getting 6-8 hours no matter what, usually, so battery life is a big plus for this rig. I think I could actually get close to 10 hours in very controlled, light use (turning off wifi, camera, etc.) and just doing some easy stuff like looking at photos or word processing. And I'm sure I might get less )4-6) if I was doing intense gaming the whole time. But definitely good compared to any other rig I have.

Anyway, had me worried for awhile, but now I think I'm OK. Anyone who can steer me towards some decent info/guides on Asus's complex power management features, feel free!

 

Does anyone know anything about the availability of the U45 model with the i5-460M processor and 1GB graphics in Canada? I've googled it but only sites from Malaysia or Thailand show up.

Here's a link to one of those Malaysian online stores: Asus U45JC-WX073V laptop, Asus U45JC-WX073V notebook prices, details and information by buylaptop.com.my - View / Buy / Order this cheapest and best prices Malaysia Asus U45JC-WX073V from buylaptop.com.my

This laptop is the model I want but so far I can't find it in Canada.

 

Has anyone tried StarCraft 2 on this system (preferably the i5-450 version)? How does it run?

 

I believe the i5-460M processor one has a different model number. try searching for "Asus 14 i5" instead of by model number, maybe?

Ran across this in a U33Jc review, might be of interest to U45Jc owners as well since probably the same for both. I also noted the U33Jc performed very well compared to some other slightly more powerful systems, and that means U45Jc should do as well, also.

 

im getting u45jc! does it has multitouch? how long it takes for a full charge? its advisable to take off the batt if using power plug right?

 

I'm planning on buying an ASUS U45JC, and i was wondering if it would be powerful enough to run CoD Black Ops? I also have a desktop but it's not really convenient to play on =P

 

See here: YouTube - COD Black Ops Gameplay (Asus U45JC-A1)

But, in general, I would say no. Not quite enough GFX power.

Fine for older games, but you need to look at something with a more powerful gfx card for CoD Black Ops, I think, and most current games.

The 310M does better than I expected, though, on older games.

Yes, it has multi-touch. Not sure, 3-4 hours, I think. No, you do not need to remove the battery. Modern laptops turn off charging automatically when the battery is 100% and then don't start again until it drops below 95% or so. No need to worry about it. Removing the battery is not recommended.

Enjoy your U45jc!

 

well that's kinda disappointing...i guess i'll try and hunt for a new laptop then...do you think it would it be ok if i tuned down the settings?

 

Possibly. On line play would be OK according to what I've seen. No way to know for sure until you try. I'm not saying it won't work, I have no way of knowing. I was just guessing. Try it and let us know.

 

hey guys what mode is the best mode ? I was on entertainment4 the whole time and then saw that there was a BALANCED mode. Is this the preferred battery mode? Also, i done battery saving mode but if i do this, i lose the taskbar at the bottom.

 

hmm...might not get it for a couple months, because I don't really have that much use for it right now. I also think that it wouldn't work too well...so i'm looking at the N43JF instead.

For just $100 more, i get a better processor, a better graphics card, better build quality (dunno, according to reviews), better speakers, better trackpad, and better keyboard...that's a lot of stuff.

problem is actually the tax, not the price of the computer.

 

I also see a power saver mode as well.

 

$100 more for all the things you mentioned sounds like the way to go to me.

Good luck and hope you get something you like!

All the different modes are just tweaks of the same basic settings for different uses and preferences. The to the task"Entertainment" mode is a good "plugged in" mode for good performance, "balanced" is a good all around mode, "power saver" extends battery run time at the cost of performance, and so on.

You can tweak any of these to your liking or create an entirely new mode with your own custom settings. I generally use 'balanced' while web surfing and as my default mode, 'entertainment' while watching videos or light gaming (with some tweaks), and so on. The settings are pretty much common sense.

cheers!

P.S. Yes 'power saver' is for when on batteries and you can bring the taskbar back in the normal way, If you move your mouse to the task bar area it will appear, if you right click on the WINDOWS icon and choose properties, you can uncheck auto-hide taskbar, etc.

 

So the best modes to stay on are balanced and entertainment?

Is power saver better or balanced?

 

"Best" depends on your needs. I do prefer those two, myself. "Power Saver" will extend battery run time, if you need that. I'm usually plugged in, so that's not a big issue for me. And battery life is pretty darn good anyway.

 

How much battery life do you get normally bron5? If say only browsing? What about if you are watching a movie or doing something intensive? Because if i'm just browsing, i say i get about 5 hours. If i'm playing online poker with this program called Holdem manager on... i mean its 2.5 hours max....

Aren't it suppose to be 8 hours usually when even browsing online?

 

Any of u starcraft 2 players?

Some of u say you are able to run sc2 without any lag on this 310M card..what in-game settings do you use?

i have windowed mode (fullscreen) and all graphics to low settings, and am on High Performance battery setting.

yet i still get quite a few lag..

is there any other settings i can do to try and make this laptop play sc2 without lag?

 

I REALLY hate this laptop.

1. Nvidia Optimus is a piece of crap. The drivers for it are absolute and it doesn't even work properly. Updating the notebook drivers causes the laptop to freeze.

2. Random OS glitches that prevent me from installing things (for example, installing MSN Messenger gives me an error saying there is something wrong with my OS. The same thing happens why I try to install Python)

3. Random Bluescreens. The laptop will bluescreen randomly. At first I thought it was from overheating (#5) but it has happened a few times while I was doing nothing and it was cool.

4. Random Freezing. The laptop will freeze randomly. Usually happens during something "intensive" like playing a game - even though i really do not consider playing wow on the lowest possible settings for everything intensive at all.

5. Overheating. This laptop hits 80C and beyond. I play WoW on the lowest settings and it still hits 80. The cooling is among the worst I have ever seen.

6. HORRIBLE wifi. The wifi card in this must be made of paperclips. It never stays connected more than an hour. It will randomly cut out and then reconnect within 10 seconds. However, sometimes when it cuts out it won't reconnect at all! This can lead to two things: sometimes putting the laptop to sleep and opening it will fix the wifi. Other times I have to hard reset the laptop to fix the wifi.



In the end, I ing hate this laptop will all the emotion in my body and I fully feel like I got completely ripped off buying this piece of crap. I'm SOOOO disappointed with Asus because I know they make great desktop hardware. I wish they gave even a fraction of that care to their laptops.




Does no one else have these same problems? Seems like everyone else here loves this piece of junk...

 

Anyone encounter a problem where this machine recognizes all 4 gigs of ram, but it only can use 3.79 gigs? In the system tab under control panel, it says 4.00 GB (3.79 GB usable). I can't figure out why, I have windows 7 64 bit, and I even swapped ram with my buddy who has DDR3 1066 in his HP, and he could use all 4GB. Whats going on?

 

hi

i was wondering whether this model runs WiDi, can you guys tell me what Wifi cards your systems have

 

did you try updating your BIOS. You know later nvidia drivers wont install properly without the latest BIOS. BIOS can probably help fix things such as fan speed, and random bluescreens/freezes. I didnt have a problem using my laptop as intended. Although my U35JC does heat up to 83C-85C ish on max settings in Team Fortress 2 (~30-60FPS) after gaming for a few hours, which is expected from the thin laptop.

 

What BIOS is the latest one? And how do I check which I have? I know you're not supposed to update the BIOS unless you really need to.

But I'm pretty sure a BIOS update won't drop my laptop's temperature 20C. My friend's HP laptop (which has identical specs) idles at 30C. Mine at 50C.

Also I'm pretty sure 95% of the bluescreens I get are caused by the processor overheating past 80C. That is ridiculously hot for a processor to get.

I'm so disappointed with ASUS that I'll probably never buy a product from them again.

 

im on BIOS 208.

I dont know what to tell you.. but 50C idle is typically normal range for this category of laptop. If heat is a major concern for you, dont buy thin and light laptops. Get a larger laptop with a bigger heatsink and fan. Look at the macbook air, it also idles around 50 and goes to 80-90C on 80%-100% load and its entire aluminum unibody is supposed to act as a giant heatsink. Most thin and lights just cant house great cooling solutions. What you can do is buy thermal compound that can drop temps maybe 5-7C such as IC Diamond.

 

It's not the temperatures themselves that matter here, it's the fact that it is constantly BSODing because of it. As I said, my friends HP laptop idles at 30C. Under normal load its 50-60C which is where my laptop idles.

Under extreme load his starts to hit 70-80C but it doesn't bluescreen. It just gets hot. And his laptop is the same size and has the same hardware as mine.

 

I need some help. I somehow disabled two-finger scrolling and I don´t know how to enable it again.

Can somebody please help me?

 

So, can you still go to control panel, and open the Elan smart pad menu? The fancy E icon? You should be able to re-enable it there. If not, then I don't know... you could always download the drivers for the touchpad again, that might reset it to default.

 

Sure you haven't missed anything obvious, like cleaning out the fan and heatsink, making sure you don't have tons of bloatware running, etc?
Even on the original bios, my U45 is stable and didn't BSOD and it idles at 30-35C in a 70*F room. Still, you're right in thinking the BSOD is the problem, since I can run my machine well above 80C without crashing. I really have to work it hard to do that, too! I have no idea, you could try reloading the bios, or even the OS from the backup disk or partition. If you already did that, then I don't know.

Also just FYI 80C is nothing for laptops. I used an HP Elitebook at work, it liked to go above 100C and thermal limit shutdown while working. It's probably a lot older than your friend's machine, though

 

Yeah I didn't miss anything. I've had these problems since day 1. I've ran the backup for the OS at least 4 times already since I got this due to random OS problems that can't be solved. (Even though I still have some now, they aren't enough to make the computer unusable)


And normally I would call Asus and read them off a 500 page long complaint about why they better replace my laptop with a quality product, but I simply can't give up my computer for the 6+ weeks they would take to replace it. I need a computer for college. :\




Also about the guy who accidentally disabled the multi-touch trackpad functionality, the same thing happened to mine. It lets me look at the drivers for it, the fancy E thing, but there's no way to "enable" it as my computer thinks it already is active. At least I don't rely on the trackpad as I use a wireless mouse.

 

@ hoboX10

You might actually have received a defective laptop. That's the only reason I could think of for your problems... mine worked great from day one. I did have that touchpad problem, more on that. Do you have access to another copy of windows, maybe even just an old XP disk that you could install on it to verify that the laptop, and not the OS, is the problem? If you can't get a BSOD out of a different copy of 7, your original install of 7 might have been bad. If it happens anyway, well, I have no clue how to fix it.

Yeah, I also use this computer for work/college, and the 6 week delay would be a drag. Got a friend with an extra machine you could bum off?

I really hope this isn't a sign that Asus is failing us, they've been a great company but stuff like this shouldn't fall through their quality control...

About the touchpad...

So, when you go into control panel, Elan Smart-Pad, Scroll tab, the vertical scroll and horizontal scroll buttons are there, and they're checked? If they are and it's not working, you might have to do something crazy like "uninstall" the touchpad from device manager, delete the drivers, then restart and let the computer install the touchpad, then download new drivers from asus and see if it resets.
Or, you could try my solution, and back up all your data to an external drive, then reinstall windows from the hidden partition or from the backup disks. Mine had that problem, but after the reinstall it's been fine for months.
This touchpad is kind of odd, and the translation for the instructions is horrible. Again, Asus's failure, I'm not too happy about that.

 

On the touchpad, yes it's all checked and the drivers are acting as if they are active.


And about sending it back, I literally CAN'T not have a laptop for 6 weeks. I would fail my college classes as it's necessary for some of them. And none of my friends have an extra laptop to borrow.

Also just to make sure you have the Asus U45JC-A1 right? 14" laptop? Do you know what temps you get when your computer is idling?

 

Yes, it says U45JC A1 on the bottom. So, I'm assuming its the same. Also I read the thread title, I think :]

I took a little 15 minute log of my laptops processor temperature with Core Temp 0.99.7, it was 37*C average while just sitting, and 46*C average with Firefox, MS word and media player open.
I maxed it out with the CPU at 82*C and the Nvidia 310M at 75*C while running Firefox, MS Word, Disk Defragmenter, Autodesk Inventor with a 1500 part assembly, Steam, GIMP, and Trackmania Nations Forever. Yeah, it was kind of slow.

I don't know, it sounds like you already flashed to the new BIOS? You could always check your fan to make sure it's working right, but I don't know...

 

No I haven't but I don't want to unless I absolutely have to. How do I check which version I already have?

 

Hey everyone. How much battery life on average do you get with it? When i charge it, it never gets higher than 95% on the battery ever. Also, i think if i'm just browsing online, i get at the most 4.5 hours battery life and that is with brightness turned halfway. How in the world do people even get 8-9 hour battery life? I am kind of disappointed because the battery life isn't as long as i thought it would be.

 

A quick update on my situation - I figured out the BIOS stuff myself and flashed the latest BIOS (207 for the U45). I'll say it seems like my laptop is faster than it was, but so far the temperatures are the same. I don't know how the new BIOS effects the wifi and BSOD problems yet though. I'll keep updating for the results of today and tomorrow.

 

So far no freezing or BSOD's. However my laptop hit 85C (185F) so it still has extreme heat problems. Either Asus didn't apply any thermal paste at all or something is defective about the fan or heatsink.


Also my wifi is still absolute . It randomly disconnects and sometimes requires a hard restart to restore connection, but apparently this is a common issue in Asus laptops. I've heard a lot of complaints about the company they use for their WLAN cards. (Atheros)

 

@hoboX10 Good to hear your machine's normal-ish now. Does your machine run at 80C or more all the time, or just when the CPU is at 100% use? If its at 80C or more ALL THE TIME, then you have a problem. But if not, it's probably normal like the rest of us. And yes, there is thermal paste, I saw plenty in mine the first time I tore it down. The 370 is a fast chip, I'm actually surprised it doesn't run hotter!
I've never had any problems with this wifi card, so I can't help you there.

@Drew1 Yeah, if you leave it in high performance mode with the wifi on, you might only get 3-4 hours. Mine averages 5 hours in balanced, with the wifi on and brightness at medium. I don't like running it below 25-30% battery, so I usually cut it off at 5 hours. I've gotten a true 9.5 hour charge once, with the wifi off and the asus battery saver mode on, but I ususally can't go that long without finding a plug.

 

Well another update on this.

My laptop froze last night, same way it used to. My laptop breaks 80C pretty much running anything. Usually I'm playing WoW when it breaks 80C. But WoW does NOT push my CPU to 100%. I'd hate to see how hot it gets under full load.

 

Laptop got a BSOD while playing WoW today. Wasn't particularly hot while running. So basically the BIOS update didn't help whatsoever, except MAYBE make the problems a little less frequent. But all the problems still very much exist.

 

Not sure what the problem is hoboX10 but I really do think you should just send it in sometime. My motherboard fried apparently around November and I sent it in. Took exactly a month (including Thanksgiving break) so hopefully it wouldn't take the full 6+ months like you're dreading.

Regarding the whole college laptop issue, I was in the same boat. My campus luckily is pretty good about public computers and I also borrowed a friends netbook for about a week. I definitely think your laptop is defective though. I've had mine for almost half a year now and although the glamour has worn off, I still think it's a solid laptop, certainly hasn't made me hate ASUS. If you get the chance, send it in and get it fixed, the investment should be worth it in the end.

 

I probably will in the upcoming weeks. And you meant 6 weeks not months right? Lol. Well for programming it's not really anything I can sit there and do on a school computer for hours. Hopefully I'll find a good time to give at least 4-6 weeks for Asus to fix my laptop.

 

How many hours are you guys getting with it? I get max 4.5 hours and it never was close to 8 hours. If i'm doing something intensive, its 2 hours usally.

 

When my laptop doesn't freeze or blue screen, with low backlighting and light web browsing over wifi I can get maybe 5 hours.

 

How come they say you can get 10 hours on this??

 

Update: My laptop broke 200 degrees Fahrenheit! (93C)

 

anyone can tell me why they say 10 hours when i only get max 4.5 hours? Also, is the u35jc battery life much better?

 

You'll get 10 hours if you have lowest brightness with no wifi or anything on and just let the laptop sit there.