Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 Owner's Lounge

did asus quit licensing bang and olufsen ?
cuz these speakers are really cheap on the VW version

 

On mine it says by ICEpower that I believe is a subsidiary of bang & okufsen

 

I mentioned just above your post how I achieved the exact same thing you are asking and provided also the name of the program.

 

Dollars to donuts, an AutoHotkey ( https://www.autohotkey.com/) script could do what you want! I use it for myriad things but its forte is key remapping.

 

Anyone with an external 4k monitor?

Problem:
my 501vw has 1080p screen.
I extend desktop to external 4k monitor.
With 2 screens (1080p + 4k), playing 4k video is choppy.
If I only use the external 4k monitor while the laptop screen is disabled, video playback is smooth enough.

If I only use two 1080p monitors, 4k video file plays back smoothly.

I used an Insignia usb-c to hdmi adapter and good hdmi cable. Web browsing on 1080p+4k extended desktop is fine.

So the question is.... is this the gtx960m limitation? or is it Intel 530 igp problem? or is it the usb/hdmi adapter?

I expected better performance.
According to google, skylake cpu's should be able to push 3 4k monitors.
I can't even push 1.25 with this crap.

 

Hi,
are any of you guys experiencing graphic issues with firefox? I have Asus UX501VW with 4K and Skylake 6700.
Here is the screen-shot:


It gets quite worse. Sometimes the whole application screen is white and I have to hover over with mouse. The tabs also get awfully deformed sometimes.

I already reinstalled Intel graphics driver (from asus webpage) but no luck yet.

Any advice?

 

I don't think it's got anything to do with the laptop. It seems to be a software issue, especially of it only happens with this particular program. Try reinstalling Firefox...

 

how do you make the power switch shutdown the computer and not reboot right away?

In old laptops, if you hold down the power, it shuts off.

in the 501vw, when you hold the power button, it shuts off and immediately reboots.
I don't want it to immediately reboot. I want it to remain shut off

 

Holding down the power button, versus just pressing it normally, force-shutdowns the laptop. This is usually done when Windows freezes. It's rebooting after force-shutdown because (most likely), that's the power failure state toggled in the BIOS.

If you want a power button PRESS to shut down the computer properly, this option is changed in the advanced section of power management in the control panel.

 

Tried reinstalling, problem remains.

 

I had this issue with the older version of Firefox and was magnified if I used any type of background theme.
Installing the latest version and using the plain default Firefox theme that comes with it fixed it for me.

 

nope, I want the force shutdown to keep the laptop off in those lockup situations.

Imagine you put a ram stick in, it's bad; blue screens. You force shutdown. As soon as you release the power button, it boots up again, blue screen vicious cycle.

so you can see why I want the laptop to stay OFF in case this sh** happens.

 

I reinstalled firefox yesterday. Downloaded the latest version. Also not using any special themes, just plain firefox. At first I thought the problem was gone after reinstalling, then (i'm not sure if this is the cause) I had multiple tabs, some folders and some programs opened, and I started Wampserver and those visual defects showed again.

EDIT: It happened also when I started Skype over Firefox. The Firefox screen when 50% black with certain deformations.

 

I'm almost positive that this is happening because Firefox itself is not playing well with the 4K screen. For me, when I add a theme this issue presents itself right away. Unfortunately, we might have to wait this out until Firefox is updated to scale better. As a side note, I only use Firefox to dial into work. Normally I use Chrome, which I've never had any issues with on this laptop. ...and I LOVE this laptop, but this 4K screen is definitely a liability. There are so many applications that I use that have some sort of issue, some minor, some major.

 

I have been using firefox as my main browser for quite sometime already. I have the FHD version of the JW and firefox runs absolutely fine on my machine. It really might be the 4k screen.

 

CAN SOMEONE DO ME A FAVOR AND CHECK SOMETHING

pretend your computer has locked up.

hold down the power button for 10-20 seconds to force hard shutdown.

when you release the power button, does the computer boot right back up by itself? or does it stay off?

 

I held it for 20 seconds and unfortunately it does boot up again as soon as I let go.
I have the newer skylake VW version.

Has anyone noticed lag/unresponsiveness/lack of smoothness when minimizing, maximizing browsers, when scrolling in chrome/firefox or gotten a lot of dropped frames during video playback in chrome/firefox? (right click Youtube video > "stats for nerds")

I'm also experiencing extreme stuttering in firefox when playing back Youtube.

 

Thanks for testing. I am going to contact Asus support to see if they can update the BIOS so it doesn't boot up after releasing the power button. It's a stupid feature.

that looks like input lag typical of lcd TV's and external monitors. Has nothing to do with the computer.

if adobe flash player is enabled, youtube playback is going to suck. Turn off flash, or try playing youtube in Chrome. I hardly ever use firefox to browse youtube because it's slower.

 

Hold it for 5 seconds only.

 

No problem, I agree, they really should get rid of it and while they're at it they should fine tune the fan curve, there's no need for 2100rpm when CPU and GPU are resting at 31 degrees celsius.

It's not input lag, this monitor thankfully doesn't have that. I do get horrible input lag when connecting my TV though, 110ms vs 40ms which I get when I connect to my desktop. But that's a problem for another day and should get "solved" once I get an eGPU enclosure.

Thanks, but turning off flash makes no difference. I've done a comparison with a two generation old Intel NUC i3, with no dedicated graphics and it's perfectly smooth, even plays back 1440p with no dropped frames. Meanwhile I get dropped frames in 144p, but like I said it's not in just the browser that's sluggish.

Held it for 5 seconds using a timer, same thing, it still reboots.

 

have you tried it? It doesn't matter how little you hold it. Even for 5 seconds, as soon as you release the power button, it boots right up again.

if you ever have a hardware malfunction or lockup cycle, you'll never be able to shut off the computer.

I asked for people to test 20 seconds because the weird thing is... if you keep holding down the power button, it does not boot up.
only when you release it does it immediately boot up.

 

yeah, I didn't watch the video carefully the first time.
I just watched it again.
But I'm still confused.

your laptop has choppier graphics than the external monitor. Is the external monitor mirroring the laptop? I see the browser window max/minimizing simultaneously; how are you doing that if it's not mirrored?

Try using gpu-z sensors tab to monitor each browser separately. Note the clock rates of each graphics chip. It will tell you which chip is being used..
It almost seems like the notebook is using igp and external is using gpu. I dunno.

I don't have an external monitor hooked up yet, but when I max/min browser window, both chrome and firefox do it smoothly on the laptop alone.

 

The monitor is connected to my desktop pc, which undoubtedly has a stronger 780 GPU. However it is just as smooth on the i3 NUC with integrated graphics as on my desktop when you minimize, maximize, scroll, playback video etc.(until you try to playback 4k ofcourse).


---edit: Okey, so this is really weird, for the third time I switched so that Chrome uses the dedicated GPU instead and now I can playback video with the dropped frames being when going into fullscreen/exiting instead of all the time. like I said above, this is not the first time I've tried this. Before it'd get a little smoother but still dropping frames left and right + I'd get horrible diagonal tearing in videos/when scrolling, that is now gone.

Still, I shouldn't have to do this considering how well the NUC is doing with only the iGPU...
And while videos now work and scrolling is occasionally smoother, it still feels unresponsive compared to the NUC/desktop. Especially minimizing, maximizing windows as well as going into fullscreen video, that's just as bad as it was before, unfortunately.

 

i think it's just glitchy intel graphics drivers.

I just got my 4k monitor installed, and performance is all over the charts.

I downloaded some 4k video clips from 4ksamples.com.
Some of them play smoother in windows media player, but not VLC, and vice versa.
It's a trial and error process to get video to play smoothly.
Also, when playing video in windowed mode, it's usually smooth. As soon as I use fullscreen, it gets noticeably choppy.

On the external 4k, max/minimizing windows is smooth.

I had gpu-z running, and I noticed that when 4k videos got choppy, the intel igp was running at lowest clocks. It would start out at 1000mhz, then suddenly drop to 350mhz. It's like it stopped detecting that 4k video was being played, and stopped decoding.

to get it to work again, I would have to right click on the 4k file, "open with windows media player", then it would play smoothly. If I opened WMP first, then dragged the 4k file into it, it would suddenly stop playing a few seconds in, or get really choppy.

Intel has work to do. buggy as hell

 

I haven't looked into it much, I know 4k is very demanding, my iGPU is pinned at 100%(Maximum frequency) when I run into 4k footage that is just too high bitrate. GPU acceleration would probably alleviate this bottleneck.

I find that the built in W10 video player is utilizing the hardware more effeciently than MPC HC. However neither seems to support dedicated GPU acceleration?

As for my problem, I'm sure it's unrelated to this. I really got to get off to work now, I'll do more experimenting tomorrow if I have the time.

 

Something is really fuct up after installing the latest Intel graphics drivers.

Chrome and firefox hardware acceleration don't work anymore. CPU gets pegged to 100% when playing HD+ videos on youtube.

Microsoft Edge still works though, and only uses 5% cpu when playing HD+ videos.

 

Well that sounds awfully similar to whatever I'm experiencing... I remember getting very high cpu load at around 80% on a 1080@60 video and just like you in Edge, everything is pretty much perfect.

Are you getting any of the symptoms I mentioned earlier? Regarding scrolling, maximizing etc.

 

maximizing looks smooth enough to me.
scrolling kinda laggy when maximized to 4k. If you shrink it to 1080p size, it's fast.

made a recording...

maximized is slightly less smooth, but I think it's smooth enough.


I did find something on Intel community forums though.

In the intel graphics control panel, Video settings, disable all the enhancements in the advanced tab and anywhere else. This seems to make windows media player play 4k video much more smoothly.

https://communities.intel.com/thread/100778

Chrome seems to still have problems that can't be fixed.
Goddamn annoying having to fiddle around just to get something to work.

Just shietty coding all around. crappy intel drivers too


Gonna use Microsoft Edge for 4k youtube videos for the time being. Edge is smooth as butta and low cpu usage. Firefox is completely unusable and makes video shake.

Also it turns out that Windows 10 built-in "movies & TV" app has the smoothest 4k video playback.
Better than WMP, vlc player, and other crap. Who knew..

 

Hey everyone! I am considering bying the newest UX501VW as office and gaming laptop. But I cannot find any review of the FHD matte 15.6" screen some versions have (like the one I want). I would be very happy if anybody here could tell me something about its quality and maybe about PWM as well. Thanks a bunch!

The model is Asus UX501VW-FY102R (available in Switzerland).

 

So guys, does the ux501jw variant feature thunderbolt 1 or thunderbolt 2?

 

Should be 2

 

I have the full HD matte twin of the ux501vw, the g501vw.

the screen is very bright, even brighter than the 4k external 300nits monitor I have. This thing is between 300-350nits probably.

color and contrast is good. But some other people who bought the exact same laptop while it was on sale got defective screens (it happens) with weird blemishes when viewed at certain angles on a dark screen.

Mine has just a little light bleed at the bottom left edge, and a vertical blemish that is only barely noticeable on a black screen. I think it may be the matte coating. your results may vary.

I did a dslr test for pwm of this samsung panel. it was 200hz at all dimmer levels. 8 lines, 1/25 shutter speed.
I went to http://www.testufo.com/#test=blurtrail
and i could still see a little blurring at 100% brightness.

panel is a SAMSUNG 156HL01-104 manufactured in 2013.
I think this might be a super budget ips screen.

luckily I use 100% brightness 99% of the time. Tests show that the samsung panel has better colors and brightness than LG. That's the trade-off.

two reviews of the same screen-
http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Asus-G501VW-FY081T-Notebook.161346.0.html
http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/asus-rog-g501vw-review-gtx-960m-i7/#screen

 

Looks good, but honestly I can't really tell when it's in 30fps.

Aren't they talking about Windows Media Center though? Either way I've disabled every "enhancement" I could find.

I've already tried lowering the resolution and it didn't make much of a difference, I'm not sure if it's after I reinstalled windows, after an update or what, but now(thanks to you) I tried it again and it actually made a huge difference. Going down to 1080p makes everything as smooth as any other device and the simple truth is that Chrome simply isn't anywhere near as efficient as Edge. I mean my phone with 1440p can scroll webpages without lag, ironically also in chrome.

Finally, I don't have to worry about that! Now I'm obviously not going to browse Chrome in FHD, the performance hit isn't that unbearable. However another "fix" is to not have the window maximized, simply eliminating the unused space on the sides makes it... butter.

I'm currently using HRC(HotKey Resolution Changer) to quickly switch between 4k and FHD. Because apparently Chrome isn't the only unoptimized application. Video players.. simply having the resolution set to 4k drastically affects the performance, doesn't matter if the content is fullscreen or not, it's weird. Windows built in "Movies & TV" is so much better optimized for this, though unfortunately it usually doesn't support the audio from mkv files. Still if you're on battery, you'll get twice(I'm not kidding) the battery life compared to pretty much anything else. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3023...video-player-the-winner-may-surprise-you.html

But yeah, I don't know what's up with Firefox, it's completely unusable in 4k. I just hope Edge gets support for extensions soon.

Here in Sweden it only says thunderbolt on their site, so I'd contact live support to make sure.

 

@link626 Thank you! the display panel istelf seems to be good enough...

Concerning PWM, I still am wondering if the UX501VW has it, too (since PWM is not tied to screen panels). As i have just seen, a user of a FHD UX501VW (first comment on site linked below) reported as self-proclaimed sensitive person that he did not notice anything PWM-related by eyesight (which migt be a valid observation). This is another nice review of the UX501VW, anyways:

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/asus-zenbook-pro-ux501vw-review/

However, some numbers would stll be nice, for once. Just where might I get numerical data on the PWM of an UX501VW? Impossible that no one has tested it.....

 

a lot of people have tested it. just google the samsung panel model number. I, and other reviewers, have confirmed it has 200hz pwm.

the motherboard and parts are exactly identical in the g501vw and ux501vw. I've compared pictures.

For that one guy, 200hz pwm may be just above his threshold of sensitivity. everyone is different.
I bought an LG IPS monitor several years ago, and got a headache using it for a short time. There was noticeable flicker.

I don't know if pwm is tied to the panel, but the asus changed the panel in the g551 notebook from samsung to LG, and there was no more pwm. So it sounds like it's tied to the panel.
http://laptopmedia.com/news/asus-fi...ung-ips-panels-on-rog-g551-notebooks-with-lg/

If you could generate a 200hz flicker, you could test whether you can tolerate this screen.

 

Here, it says that does not depend on the panel: https://twitter.com/TFTCentral/status/721633672785473536
In another post , they state that "you can have two screens with same panel where one is pwm and one isn't. Down to backlight dimming electronics"
https://twitter.com/TFTCentral

But, of course, if many variants of one panel used by a certain company have PWM, it might be somewhat likely that they use it for other variants, too.

Then again, if we talk about product lines, the old UX501JW only used PWM for the lowest brightness levels; so one might also speculate that they kept that system. This is what I meant, if one believes TFTCentral, then one has to test each product variation on its own, as testing the screen in other product lines only leads to speculation.

Do you know a quick way of generating 200Hz flicker *temporarily*?
And how did you use your camera to detect PWM?

Also, could one use programmes to change the PWM frequeny to a hihger level? E.g. http://devbraindom.blogspot.ch/2013/03/eliminate-led-screen-flicker-with-intel.html

 

does anyone have the UX501VW-FY095R ? I want the FHD version of the UX501VW, but I do not want a PWM panel.

If it is the LG version I think I am good, the samsung looks like it is PWM though so I need to find out.

Thanks

 

turns out the only way to force shutdown after holding the power button is to hold F2 and enter the bios, then hit the power button to turn off the computer completely.

 

Quick question, if you update your dedicated NVIDIA graphics card regularly, do you need to upgrade the on board INTEL graphics card as well?

Thanks!

 

Hey, I have one final question. Can you quickly look into it, please?

So, you were right, @link626 , the UX501VW FHD does have PWM!

Now I tried something with my own laptop screen: I used this test: http://www.testufo.com/#test=blurtrail
and looked through the screen with my camera at manual shutter speed. I had lines all the time. Dim or full brightness, 2 lines at 1/400, 2 at 1/125, 3 at 1/50, around 6 at 1/25.

So I have PWM, even at full brightness?
Does this result even make sense - do 6 lines at 1/25 and 2 at 1/125 not suggest that I should only see one line on shutter speeds faster than 1/250?
What would my rough PWM frequency be? 200 Hz? (6*25=150, 2*125=250, ...)

The screen is a 2012 FHD AUO9003.
Because if this result does make sense, then maybe I shouldn't be bothered by 200 Hz - I was never bothered by the screen before.

 

the fast shutter speeds should be discarded.

Did you take the photo and move the camera to make the photo blur?
or did you merely look at the camera screen?

follow the instructions here... http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/content/pulse_width_modulation.htm#testing
You'll probably get similar results.

If you take a photo of the static line while moving the camera, going by 1/50 and 1/25 shutter speeds, it looks like your monitor has low 150hz pwm...... 3x50, or 6 x 25.

I have read that some old screens have pwm even at full brightness.

My previous asus laptop bought in 2011 has a Chimei TN panel manufactured in 2010.
It also has 200hz pwm. At full brightness, it doesn't have any detectable pwm. Even at dimmer levels, I don't get headaches.

I now have a 40" 4k samsung TV hooked up to my 501vw right now as an external monitor, and the TV has a super low 120hz PWM, even a little bit at full brightness. I use it for a few hours and get no headache.
I think I'm immune to pwm.


if you can confirm 150hz,
and you've been using your AUO for this long without getting any headaches, then you'll probably do fine with this 200hz FHD in the ux501.
However, you might need to get used to the high brightness. This samsung panel is noticeably brighter than any lcd I've ever owned.

 

Really disappointed that they keep putting PWM panels in the FHD versions. I would buy the ultra and just run at 1080p but it tends to look blurry as hell and wastes battery for £100s more. I am just after a 15" with FHD, full keyboard and similar build quality to a MBP. Annoys me that they still cannot manage this, unless I am mistaken, anyone own anything similar they could recommend?

 

Not ideal, though it's better than nothing.

I briefly mentioned high input lag when connecting to TV through HDMI out, this is now somehow resolved. Could be another odd side effect of using the native 4k res when duplicating to a FHD TV. I used to be getting a utterly unusable 110ms compared to 40ms when connected directly to the graphics card on my desktop. I connected another PC monitor and I got 0 input lag. And now finally, when I connect to the TV but duplicating 1080p I get 34ms, weird.

Anyways how's the coil whine on your unit?

I can confirm that 4K does unfortunately not scale properly down to 1080p. It's usable and you can still see all text, but I wouldn't recommend running it that way. Side by side with a native 1080p display it's very obvious which is which.

Regarding battery life I've only actively tested and logged it once. I have the 4k matte screen and got 5 hours of mostly browsing white pages with 100% brightness until I got to about 60/50% where I lowered it to 10%(At this point the screen was using consuming 90% of the battery). I was using the "Balanced" power profile and "Battery saver" was off all the time so would expect better results under more ideal scenarios. CPU, Cache and iGPU was undervolted though(170, 150, 50mV).
What is a little bit concering is that my battery wear has gone from 1 to 3% after just a week of use and that is maybe 3 discharges. 2500mWh under designed capacity now, measured using HWMonitor. This might be normal? I don't know, I'm used to desktops.

With all of todays problems using 4K(especially on a laptop) I think they should have come up with a solution to propely scale it down to 1080p... Alternatively shave of the bezels, fit a 16.5" 1440p panel so we wouldn't have to scale anything.

 

Thanks for the detailed answer!

hm, manually moving the camera only produces one big blur. But my first results should be fine: that link I used (You used that test in one of your earlier answers as well) produces moving white vertical lines and i took the photo with a stable camera - the physics should be the same, am I right?

Yes, i used this laptop extensively, so I should be fine, like you. That's something!

Yes, I have read about the brightness.... probably will have to reduce it for bright films and office applications....

 

Yes, I feel you. Especially since matte displays are often specially chosen by people who want a comfortable looking experience...

Yeah, i guess the UX501VW with 96Wh battery (there are two versions) has a seomwhat acceptable battery life, even in 4K.

And the problem is that the few reviews that DO test PWM often leave out configurations.

Which is why I have not ready anything about the Dell XPS 15 9550 FHD, which is quite similar to the asus.

[Well, I have read about the acer VN7-592g with the same hardware and FHD screen with apparently very high frequency PWM (laptopmedia says 20 kHz). But one of its downsides is an even worse battery life than the 4k zenbook, i believe.
EDIT: sorry, didn't see the build quality requrement. Well, no, the acer is not built as well and sturdy as the MBP.]

but those three links are good sites for reviews, and they include PWM:

laptopmedia.com
Notebookcheck.com
GaminglaptopsJunky

Especially the third one is really helpful in the forums. He might be able to recommend somehting!

 

i get whine at high performance power setting, when the cpu is running full speed.

much quieter in balanced setting when cpu is lowest power state.

i accept it as normal these days.

my AMD laptop has whine too.

 

yeah physics should be the same. we'll just assume your screen is less than 200hz pwm.

your photo is blurred most likely because the line is out of focus. Needs manual focusing for best results, that's why dslr camera works best.

i like the brightness. it's not blinding. Whites look white, not dirty white like my other screens.
some people have suggested wearing sunglasses or even using a sheet of tint film for screens that are too bright.

 

I can also attest to the screen being very bright, considerably brighter compared to my previous Toshiba laptop. In order to make it more comfortable to my eyes, I keep enabled the Asus Eye Care utility and rarely surpass the brightness level of 70%.

I've also got the same panel as link626, but I don't notice the pwm issue, so I'm not bothered at all...

 

Not sure if anyone has noticed this new 4k win10pro model pop up in the USA, UX501VW-XS74T.

Asus USA web store:
http://store.asus.com/us/item/201604AM060000092/A26128
Asus USA promo PDF:
http://promos.asus.com/us/downloads/data_sheets/ASUS_UX501VW-XS74T_ZENBOOK_Spec_Sheet.pdf
ExcaliberPC:
http://www.excaliberpc.com/642005/asus-zenbook-pro-ux501vw-xs74t-15.6.html

I am interested because it states in 2 of the 3 links above that it has a *4K matte touchscreen*. Too good to be true?
The specifications which are contradictory among the links which I would like to clarify are:
8/16GB DDR4 RAM (and if 8GB is it expandable and does it have only 4GB soldered to motherboard?)
2/4GB 960m RAM
Matte screen (not mentioned on Asus store)

Asus USA are unsure and only read out what is on Asus website, and said I need to provide a serial number to obtain more information (however this may still not provide info on matte screen). ExcaliberPC is not answering a couple of queries I have sent - does anyone know of any other store I can ask who will ship to Australia? (Asus Australia assured me it will be covered under 1 year international warranty)

Asus does seem to commonly have vague information about their specific submodels. Does anyone own this particular submodel yet and can shed some light?

Thanks

 

Hi Biao,
I am interested to know what you think of the quality of this UX501VW UHD matte screen...do the yellow colours look good to you with no green tint? Also is the brightness high enough and glare low enough for you to use outdoors? I am also looking at your model UX501VW-FI016T in Australia if the USA model is unsuitable but cannot find anywhere this model is on display. I hope you can work out why your SSD is not working when someone else with the same model is. Maybe it is your 950 Pro. What GB size did you try? (I think the other member replaced original 128GB SATA M2 with same size 128GB SM951 NVMe M2) Thanks