Asus U47VC Owners Lounge

U47VC and Win8 --- Fn+F2 ... no functionality.

Is anyone running the U47VC with win8? if so... do you have the capability to turn off/on the wireless using the Fn key + F2 key?
Mine does not respond.

Called tech support... they claim their ATK driver needs an update. (another rep had told me to restore to factory default... The Asus Tech reps' favorite solution to every problem.

Thanks,

 

Go to the support site and download this: ASUS Wireless Radio Control (A driver to make you switch Airplane mode(Wireless) On/Off)
http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&p=3&m=U47VC&hashedid=orMmoCt4XLsf009e
Works fine on mine, using Win8 also.

 

OV10stang, Thanks very much for taking the time to respond. What you suggested worked! AND... it also addressed the "unknown device" found in the device manager. This entry is no longer there and all is clean in my device manager.

THANKS!

Asus tech support wanted were clueless and recommended a reset to factory default. I'm so unimpressed with Asus.

As I mentioned before, I bourght a new laptop, had 4 RMAs on it, spent countless days trying to get it to work properly, the new laptop was at the repair centre for 45 days and in the end ... Asus gave me a refurbished unit.

I've been in the I.T. field for 25 years, have purchased countless pcs/notebooks for corporations and have never encountered such poor customer care/support.

Thanks again for solving my problem in a few seconds. Perhaps you could teach Asus support a few things.

 

Battery life indicator

I have windows 8 on my U47vc.
I've this laptop for about 2 weeks (replacement unit sent to me by Asus).

From a full charge, when I unplug the AC, the battery life indicator in the system tray indicates about 4 hours. It used to indicate 7 or so. I'm suspecting a bad battery. I spoke to Asus support about this and they said I should expect 4 hours on a 6-cell battery. One of the reasons I purchased this unit was because of the 7-8 hours battery life advertised... on the Asus site. Of course, I realize that 8 hours is likely with the PC on doing absolutely nothing, dimmed display and all. Still doesn't explain the dramatic drop in the battery life expectancy reported in the system tray.

I'm curious as to what other users are experiencing.
Could other owners share their result please?

 

Battery life indicator

I have windows 8 on my U47vc.
I've this laptop for about 2 weeks (replacement unit sent to me by Asus).

From a full charge, when I unplug the AC, the battery life indicator in the system tray indicates about 4 hours. It used to indicate 7 or so. I'm suspecting a bad battery. I spoke to Asus support about this and they said I should expect 4 hours on a 6-cell battery. One of the reasons I purchased this unit was because of the 7-8 hours battery life advertised... on the Asus site. Of course, I realize that 8 hours is likely with the PC on doing absolutely nothing, dimmed display and all. Still doesn't explain the dramatic drop in the battery life expectancy reported in the system tray.

I'm curious as to what other users are experiencing.
Could other owners share their result please?

 

UPDATE:
I found what was draining the battery ever so quickly...the Bluetooth. It was on because I had purchased a BT mouse. turned it off, purchased a USB mouse... much better.

I hope this post helps others.

 

Thanks for the update, I just turned mine off too. I didn't realize that was sucking up so much power.

 

Should I update latest bios? My bios version is 302.

 

If everything is working fine, I wouldn't..

 

Has anyone else experienced and solved the problem of random program crashes? I've had my VC for about 6 weeks now and this is the most consistent problem I've had with it. At random times, programs will just fall like dominos - IE, Windows Explorer, Photoshop, Skype, Chrome - in no consistent order.

When I first got it, I immediately upgraded to Win8, updated the BIOS and all the drivers, and everything was fine but I started having this problem. Then I had the WiFi issue where it would continuously turn itself off in Win8 (don't ever Disable your Wireless Network Adapter - learned the hard way that nothing will ever be the same even after you Enable it again). So, I went back to Win7, formatted the drive and used the factory dvds to get it back to point A.

And now I'm still having the same program crash problem... I love this machine - battery life is excellent, nice and lightweight, quick, but this is killing me - I can't rely on anything to stay open and I keep losing work. Please help...

 

Has anyone tested the unit with SDHC cards?
My unit will not read the cards, and as a result, the entire unit will get stuck on the "shutting down" screen for about 15-20 mins until the entire thing BSODs and crashes.

 

Try pulling one stick of memory at a time. See how it runs on each, maybe you have a bad stick.

 

This is my first post just to get that out of the way.

Back story:

I bought my u47 off of xoticpc.com at the end of the summer to upgrade it a little with out putting any effort in, which included them removing all Asus software. In the beginning of December I accidentally drop my wonderful little u47 and broke my screen. I send it in get the free warranty, ever thing is wonderful. That is until they tell me my media board is broken. From then on out they basically keep feeding me lies. I FINALLY after 7 weeks get my computer back. However, when I boot it up, all of my own data is gone and has been replaced by all of Asus' poor bloatware.

Problems: My custom (as in I paid xoticpc to put it in) 750gb 7200rpm hard drive has been split in two as shown here. imgur: the simple image sharer
And I can no longer turn on the back light to my keyboard. I press fn+f4 and it just pulls up IE.

If anyone has solutions, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you ahead of time,

Cameron

 

Join the club. I've had 3 RMAs on my brand new unit and in the end, I have a refurbished unit. For anyone thinking of purchasing an ASUS notebook, beware. Read these posts. I wish I had before I purchased mine. You may be fortunate to have a good working unit but should you need support... good luck.

ASUS: you have great potential but aren't there yet. Listen to your customers, pull up your socks and if you claim to provide exceptional customer service, please walk the talk.

I hope this entry helps others.

 

I'm sorry you had to go through with that. I've never had to send it in for a RMA, but your story has several consistencies with a number of things I've heard about the process in general.

Your own data missing and the bloatware back: I definitely hear that it is wise to back-up your data. They'll do a system restore, which is why all the bloatware is back. This also wipes all of your data. furthermore, the basic install on this computer includes a partition to your hard drive, which is why you're seeing that as a problem. I'm afraid for these items, there's no easy fix. If you didn't back-up your data ahead of time, it is likely gone. You'll then have to uninstall the bloatware in the old fashioned way. Thankfully, there are several general ASUS threads on this forum that can help you evaluate when you need something and when you can remove it. There are utilities on the web that can help you adjust the partition on your hard drive, or remove it altogether. As with everything else, it is helpful to create your own restore disk and back-up all of your data, just in case something goes wrong.

I'm afraid I couldn't help you with the Fn+F4/IE problem. I've not encountered that myself

Best of luck to you with everything.

 

I backed up my important data, so no problem there. Its just frustrating. I will look for some threads about the partition. Thanks

 

Does both the Asus u47a and u47vc come with a 2 year manufacture's warranty with accidental damage for the 1st year, or am I wrong? Some models of the u47 on Amazon say 2 year, some say 1 year accidental damage & 1 year manufacture's warranty (lack of detail), and when I emailed Asus customer support they said all u47 models have only a 1 year warranty for the USA.

Also, has anybody successfully upgraded a U47VC to a quad core? Might be a bit much for the thermals though.

Also, if you upgrade the RAM or hard drive, do you have to break any warranty seals?
Thanks

 

The standard warranty that comes with the U47VC or the U47A is as follows:
- 2 Year International Warranty (This includes the major hardware failures and things as such)
- 1 Year Accidental Damage Warranty
The two year warranty includes two-way free shipping to the repair center.

As for your quad-core question, I've not considered doing that to my laptop since it doesn't seem necessary.

Upgrading HDD or RAM does not void any kind of warranty. Though if your hardware fails, and you send it to the repair center, they may re-install it with stock specifications.

Hope I answered your questions!

 

Thanks. When I look at the warranty card for the U47a, it says it has a 1 year warranty and some accidental warranty which I assume is 1 year as well. This is in the United States. There are some options to extend the warranty.

 

Then most probably the warranty policies are different in the US. I purchased mine in Canada. Also, as you pointed out, the model difference could be the reason for the warranty being 1-year instead of 2-year.

-| Best |-

 

Hi all! I just got this baby from newegg! I'm already learning a lot about this laptop by reading the threads.

I would like to have a windows/ubuntu dual boot. I am still debating whether to go for windows 7 or 8. I was wondering if anybody could share there experience installing linux/ubuntu along side windows (7 or 8) (what works, what doesn't etc...) I've read somewhere that dual booting ubuntu and windows 8 gets complicated with UEFI. Any tips would be appreciated.

I'm also considering upgrading the ram to 16 gb and installing an ssd. As far as the ram, do i need to throw away the 8gb already in there?

Thanks in advance!

 

Hey folks, trying to do a clean install of Windows 7, but the device won't let me.
I got in the bios (version 207), disabled UEFI boot and then booted at Windows 7 DVD.

I'm able to get into the windows 7 installation wizard. I'm unable to select any of the partitions
to install windows 7. I get a message with "Windows cannot be installed on this disk. GPT etc...".
A quick Google search reveals this has something to do with UEFI, but I can't figure out what.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

 

Hey,

If you are trying to install a 32-bit version, you need to disable UEFI from your BIOS. If you are going for the 64-bit version, then enable UEFI. Your BIOS version seems to be the latest one.

I am assuming you are trying to get a clean-install. You may want to try this:

1. Boot from the Windows DVD
2. Click Install Now
3. At the setup screen, click Custom (Advanced)
4. Click Drive Options
5. Select the partition(s) you want to format
6. Click Format - this will delete EVERYTHING on that partition
7. Create a new partition and select a partition to install Windows on.
8. Continue with install.

All the best!

 

Quickly...
well I just got mine and installed gentoo on it.
Works fine.
Using kernel-3.8.5
It is pretty standard hardware and is well sported the only thing I need to work on is the fn key which works for media but not for backlight screen and keyboard (note: brightness screen and backlit keyboard work but not with the fn key)
but I might have a solution for this, when I ll have time will test it and might report here upon results.

You should be able to upgrade without any problem memory to 16GB as some sellers do so for this model and some people in this lounge have already done so and reported success.
About ssd I did install on 128GB and was planing to swap the odd drive bay with the original hard drive .
unfortunately I bought a SATA 2nd HDD caddy for 12.7mm Universal CD/DVD-ROM. which is not what one want for this laptop (too big)
I believe we need the 9.5mn version (ultra slim bay).
It should be easy to swap odd for a hdd caddy as the screw holding the memory back panel also hold the odd bay.
Only problem is that black panel it is a pain to remove without breaking the little plastic holder thingy...
I also bought a hdmi to vga and this works fine.
I haven't currently installed/enabled the nvidia/nouveau driver yet but laptop works fine with the Intel one(dual display too)
will try bumblebe later.

Also problem with window (window 7) , I was planing to put window also on the ssd but this is a beast after update and installing firefox it take more than 55GB space.
It's insane!!!
And moreover I find it to be an annoying process if you want to keep the oem window (need resize partition ,image it..)
Windows update did amount for about 1GB and I guess there is the swap equivalent wich could be removed (would be 8 gb) but still...
for Linux
/ take less than 5gb and /usr too (go figure window 7 oem size...)

 

For linux user here is a pastbin where you can check hardware list witch drivers I used for linux.

Paste #89958 at spacepaste

 

My friend has the Asus U47a, the one without discrete graphics.
With the I5-3210m 2.5GHZ/3.1GHZturbo

Plugged it into a kill-a-watt meter.
At idle on the desktop, full brightness; about 15 watts! No more than a crappy atom netbook.

at full CPU load, 4 threads, full brightness (using some generic java based CPU burner (top post Java CPU burn test program - Guru3D.com Forums)
31 watts, according to Throttlestop, it is running at around 16w TDP, not much! Temps were about 65-71 Celsius. Clockspeed held steady from beginning to end at 2.9GHZ

at full CPU load + Furmark on the on-die HD 4000 graphics;
57 watts

Interesting how it rose 26 watts when running the pants off the graphics as well. I only did this for a few minutes but thermals seemed to stabilize.

This shows that the CPU portion of the chip takes very little power, far less than the 35w TDP since that TDP includes the graphics portion.
So I'd take it's more like a 22w TDP for the CPU, rough estimate.
57 watts looks like the TDP is beyond 35W meaning the thermal management circuitry is allowing the chip to go over the limits because the temperature is OK. But, why can't it rev up the CPU if temperatures are OK.. Didn't load CPU-z but I'm thinking both cores weren't at 3.1GHZ but maybe they were (if so, very very power efficient).

Tested CPU single core performance with Super PI 1.5XS on the U47A, at 3.1GHZ;
1M: 12.7 seconds
2M: 29 seconds

On my X9100 on my G50VT:
1M: 16 seconds
2M: 40 seconds

@3.5GHZ vis FSB overclocking;
1M: 14.7 seconds
2M: 34 seconds

So my 2009 laptop is still decent with real world responsiveness Rough estimate of ~33-50% faster clock for clock with floating point than Penryn. Of course with multitasking/SMP it would be pwned. Guess I'll wait until 10nm to upgrade.

 

I've had a similar problem where the U47VC won't wake from sleep. I have also had the notebook flat out refuse to power on after being shut down. To fix that I have to unplug if plugged into power, remove the battery and hold down the power on button for 30 seconds.
The notebook has been returned to ASUS twice under warranty already for this and other issues such as having a power light but no monitor screen or hard drive activity. It is on it's second replacement mother board and factory Windows reinstall. My advice, sell it. Please let me know if you find a solution.

 

Thanks all for your posts. I am having the same problem again after two mother board and factory rebuilds. I am also going send ASUS this link and request a third RMA and more replacements. This is obviously a major problem.

 

Hey everybody,
I'm experiencing erratic wifi connectivity issues with my uv47c. I believe I have the latest drivers.
At times, it will connect/disconnect/connect/disconnect... (repeat) from my home network.

I've tried all sorts of things. Now thinking of changing the router.

Before I dig any further, has anyone experienced this with their uv47c before?

Cheers,
G

 

Have you tried it on a different router?

 

That's my next step. Not as simple as it sounds as I have to replace it with my ISP.

Was hoping someone had experienced a similar issue with a solution

 

Thanks, at last I somewhat resolved the issue by locating the router a bit closer to a window (used a longer data cable to allow it to reach the window). Odd that it used to work flawlessly in the original location last year. New interference source? Who knows.
At least it now works with no drop-outs... albeit still a bit slow.