M50Sv: Review & Owners' Lounge

What did you use for overclocking and monitoring your temps? I've read in guru3d that flashing a card's bios with a higher card's bios would increase its overclocking potential.Can anyone confirm that?

 

I'm using rivatuner to overclock gpu...setfsb for cpu and ram...and i use a few things for monitoring...to get an average...mainly gpu-z, everest pro, cpu-z, and rmclock...it definitely helped with cooling while overclocking, like i said earlier i played grid for two hours at my OC and it was only at 77c...before on 175.80's i had it at 86-90 and it would cut the clocks by half...and oooo i'd be angry

 

Yeah that's a bummer right there =) ahhhh i can't do anything to my laptop since it's still in michigan! i am just collecting information and hopefully i could remember them all and i could apply it to my lappy on august. =)

 

juicebox can you control the fan? I mean if the gpu reaches a certain temp then the fan would operate at full speed?

 

no it's still a bios issue even with all the latest and greatest software programs out there...it's just not possible now...but i think the new 177.41's help out with that, not sure though, they definitley do keep it cooler...somehow...i'm not sure about when it comes on a certain temp cause you can't hear it anyway unless it's a quiet room...and it's not so quiet round here

 

What's the fastest memory you can put in the m50 series? I bought a 4gb kit of DDR2 667 dual channel, not even thinking I could probably upgrade to ddr2 800. Would it accept and be able to fully use DDR2 800 or would it just run it at 667MHz?

 

the sv model uses 667, but the vm uses 800.

 

In the M50sv model like mine it will downclock it to 667...in the M50vm it will utilize all of it...but if you use the 800 in the M50sv and overclock it you wont have to worry about burning it out like you would the regular 667mhz...because you can't get over the 800mhz mark without burning your cpu up

 

Cool, thanks for the quick replies! I guess I will stick with the 667 kit I just got for a while at least (I have a m50sv-b1) but geting ddr2-800 and overclocking it to 800mhz isnt a bad idea at all, perhaps in the near future .

 

Juicebox do you think I would get similar results with the same drivers but on xp? I am using 174.93 and I like the temps stay around 77C gaming but thats no overclock.

 

Well TMO it couldn't hurt to try...I would imagine you would get better temps then that...From my personal experience when I had 175.80's i would get up to 86-90c with my current overclock after 2 hours of gameplay...which in return would halfclock me....now with 177.41's i hit 2 hours...got out of the program...already had gpu-z loaded and everest loaded to test the temps...and was only running at 77c with current overclock in sig...with grid at 1440x900 2xaa and vsync on....so i mean you probably will get better cooling...

 

I'd already perused that page, and established that the T8100 is absent from its list of supported CPU:s

Is there anything compatible with the 2.1GHz T8100 in there? (...fat chance...)

(I know, should nae have got the BluRay mickey mouse version of the m50sv, but there was nothing else on offer 'round these parts, and I really liked the feature set. And, yes, the looks, dammit)

 

This is what my verputzte "light bleed" may look like in e.g. Casablanca ( underexposed):


..or in Barton Fink ( underexposed):


This is just a black screen, courtesy of Dead Pixel Buddy ( normal exposure):


...and my plain vanilla Windows desktop, with a black background to underline the bleed ( underexposed):


Note that the pictures taken from films are purposely underexposed, because photographing the screen at normal exposure magnifies the problem -- it makes it look worse than it actually is. The underexposed pic gives a better look-and-feel of the light bleed at the expense of a picture that is harder to make out -- i.e. you have to imagine a Bogey that is a whole lot brighter in reality than on my pics (if such a thing is possible ) but with a pronounced halo of light at the bottom of the screen.

The "Black Screen" picture is not underexposed -- in actual reality it doesn't look quite that bad. Looks more like the Casablanca/Barton Fink photographs.

Note, however, that the Windows desktop picture appears to have been taken (my bad) from a poorly chosen angle -- it doesn't look that dark up on top, but otherwise it's pretty representative; the Windows taskbar looks gray and washed-out from any normal viewing angle.

That --in a nutshell-- is my m50sv "multimedia" experience.

Now, for the 64.000$ question: to RMA or not to RMA? If this had been a TV I wouldn't even have asked -- it'd have been back in the store so fast you would just have seen a light flicker and possibly heard a far-away sonic boom. However, should I tolerate this in a laptop? Am I being too dam' anal? None of the other screens I've had have had anywhere near to this much bleed.

What do you guys say?

 

i would based on those pictures. a $1400-1500 notebook should provide you with a better screen than that.

 

My webcam sucks, almost any movement becomes a blur, is this just me, or are these webcams crap?

 

I use GPU-Z and HWmonitor
www.cpuid.com

its great, super small and reports die temps.

and i use CPU-Z to monitor multipliers and cpu speeds, and voltages.
www.cpuid.com

and i use OCCT 2.0a to test an overclock. its great, it incorporates cpu-z and hwmonitor and monitors it all while you burn test.

and of course, Rivatuner to setup the gpu overclocking profiles, however, ntune is fine also, but i find rivatuner more reliable. www.guru3d.com

and setFSB for overclocking cpu/memory
and RMClock for undervolting and setting up power/voltage profiles. excellent software! amazing for notebooks.

 

gpu temps are simple

if you open the back hood of the m50 chassis you'll see that the card has a small heatsink attached heatpipe that reaches to the heatsink fins by the exhaust area.

its sad that asus chose to do it this way, because there is no direct fan/air flow over the gpu, gpu memory, or direct heatsink.
but sadly it gets the 'leftover' warm air from the fan after having passed through the cpu heatpipe fins.

if there were a way to switch those two, having it cool the gpu first, tthen the cpu, that might bring the temps down 1-3C i bet.

but the easiest and most effective way to improve cooling isn't necessarily by using different drivers, but by replacing the thermal paste on both cpu, gpu and chipset, and then undervolting the cpu.

better thermal paste can improve temps on all of those by sometimes as high as 5C under load.
the good stuff, Sunbeam TX-2, or Arctic Silver 5, or the Noctua paste. any of them are great, tx-2 i think takes the crown once cured.

undervolting the CPU allows first for the cpu to not get as hot, and secondly, prevents the fan from spinning up as high or as frequently. and thirdly, produces less heat, thereby allowing what airflow is passing through the heatpipe fans to better cool the gpu.

after that, there is precedence to suggest that different gpu drivers CAN possibly affect temps. most proven reported cases rarely affect it by 1-2C.

after that, doin like juicebox and some others do, is have a notebook cooling pad.

in the case of the m50, asus didn't design a very good bottom cover, the 'slots' for intake of air on the bottom of the notebook are very restrictive, and don't offer much gains at all for cooling with a cooling pad.

what i do, is, if i'm keeping the notebook stationed at a desk or somewhere where its not going to move. i just remove the back cover, and put it on my cooling pad. That dramatically improves temps, by at least 5-6C across the board and sometimes more!

i really can't wait for a gpu bios editor to have function for the 9xxxM series, because i'm betting this gpu can undervolt significantly while maintaining excellent speeds....
cheers everyone!

 

the drivers for the webcam are much beter in vista than they are in XP.
they allow you to capture 1280 res, while xp maxes at 640res for me..odd?

yeah i get it too, its 'decent' at best. i doubt it actually captures 30fps like it says it does... hence the motion blur.

 

Mine is definitely crap. Blurry, jerky, and it doesn't seem to be able to register any other colour than purplish. I just don't mind that bit.

 

Now, for the 64.000$ question: to RMA or not to RMA? If this had been a TV I wouldn't even have asked -- it'd have been back in the store so fast you would just have seen a light flicker and possibly heard a far-away sonic boom. However, should I tolerate this in a laptop? Am I being too dam' anal? None of the other screens I've had have had anywhere near to this much bleed.

What do you guys say?[/QUOTE]

hmmmmm...

that's a hard one, well, if you can manage without your notebook for typically 1-2 weeks, you *could* end up with a significant improvement.

if 1-2 weeks is much longer than you are willing to give up, then wait for a more opportune time.

but definately, get in contact with asus and be sure to have a tech rep see those pictures and even this post that you posted as a reference. then see what they say right?
if you open an 'rma' its typically a window of opportunity to send it in to them, they expect it to arrive within a 30 day window. it doesn't hurt if you 'don't' send it in, the rma will just expire and you would have to go through the steps again of contacting the service dept.

 

I OC'd my T9300 to 2.8GHz, undervolted it to 1.1v (from 1.375) and it runs perfectly stable at around 60C full load. (is that good?)

I also used ATI Tray Tools Public Beta HDxxxx (see this thread: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=255769) to mess with the way the fan in my M50Sa runs. There are about 10 steppings you can set, the speed of the fan (%) vs. the core temp (F/C) and there's even a little thing in there that will bog your video card/CPU down something awful so that you can test it. Note that this ATI Tools thing is the only way I was ever able to find my GPU temp (other tools didn't show it) but it won't OC the video card [yet - beta!]. Seeing as it's an ATI tool, it'll probably only work if you have an ATI card.

Being able to manipulate the fan definitely helped me stay around 60C. With a starting temperature around 52C, I load-tested the CPU with ORTHOS for 45 minutes. For the first few minutes the temp rose pretty quickly, and after that it stayed around 60C. I toyed with it before load-testing to make sure I still couldn't hear the fan (AT ALL!!! I am a noise hating FIEND!)

Even if you don't overclock, I vehemently recommend RMClock for undervolting your CPU. I think it's a no-brainer that if you can get your CPU to run 100% stable at a lower voltage and take the temperature down a few notches, it'll increase the life of not only your CPU but everything else your CPU heats up (i.e. the whole notebook.) I noticed my hard drive temp even went down slightly over the ordeal. Now after seeing the temps other people are posting, I'm wondering if there's something wrong with my lappy or something really, REALLY right. Hmmm....

 

Mine doesn't have anywhere near as much bleed

 

that's great! i'm truly impressed! 1.1v @ 2.8? i'd say nothing short of amazing! and 60C does seem a little high, but MUCH better than what stock volt temps would be ie, 65C+

nah, i've used ATI tool with many a nvidia card, sometimes it has limited functionality, but it works

SICK i'm going to try it!! wooo!!!

i'd say you defiantely lucked out on the cpu front. no doubt about that, OCCT doesn't even run for 10 seconds at 1.1v 2.5ghz for me. TIMMEH

 

I'll have to try this OCCT thingy you speak of. I'll get back to you on this one. I did do both of the CPU tests on ORTHOS. I couldn't get the CPU + RAM one to run at all, not even at stock speed/voltage or even if I downclocked the thing. I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with that test. Maybe it's not quite compatible with my board or something. Who knows. If the ORTHOS CPU + RAM test is broken, maybe OCCT is too (warning: speculation!!!) The ORTHOS FFT test would die after a few seconds if I lowered the voltage any more than 1.1v, and I'd also have issues with programs self-closing, so 1.1 looks like the sweet spot for me. If I were you I'd try using the CPU-only ORTHOS tests as well, and if they run well, and you don't have any program-closing/crashing/instability issues, then I wouldn't worry about it.

Also, I need to make note that on HWMonitor, the CPU temps very consistently reported higher than they did in RMClock, by 10+C. Both of them display F and C, so I'm definitely not just confused about temperature scales. I wonder which one is more accurate. The temps I reported here were HWMonitor temps (the higher ones.)

 

I think that list is just presets that the guy that made that program created, you could probably still use setfsb or message that guy and ask him, I wouldn't want to send to down the wrong path to cpu death but maybe you could dl set fsb and check it out

 

http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/index.php?Download

i'm not sure if it uses orthos as its base... but that is odd that the cpu/ram mix mode fails... it works fine in occt at stock and all the other tests.
uses hwmonitor for temps. and cpu-z for cpu/ratio stuff.

yeah, HWmonitor taps into the cpu's own thermal diodes, where RMclock i'm pretty sure goes from the motherboards cpu temp monoitor. which is what gives you the differential. HWmonitor uses CoreTemp as its basis from what i understand.

 

like that other person posted, dude, EVERY CPU is supported
its just those presets to autoload that that guy made on that thread.

just run setfsb and mess around. like i said earlier, you should be able to do 220-230fsb without a problem. which equates to around 2.4-2.5ghz.

 

So... is ATI tray tools the magic software to manipulate fans on this computer or is it because he has an m50sa?

And Urbanos I appreciate the cooling advice maybe
I will add some new thermal pads/paste. I have however had a driver that had a 7C difference higher than my current gpu driver

edit http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=260766 maybe these pads would make a difference

 

Tmo + Urbanos,

Duh... Didn't think of that. Thx guys. Now to find out how that thing works -- after the RMA. Don't wanna make the Asus techies' lives harder than it has to be.

In any case I have no intention of squeezing the last CPU cycle from my rig, just tweak it a li'l, you know?

 

crapper, well the beta that buddy posted doesn't run, no ati drivers installed .

strange cuz on my desktop, 8800GT, ati tools works fine.

crapper.

and dude, forget thermal paste pads, they are almighty geigh.

trust me, been sick overclocking for 10 years now,
remove the back cover
remove the screws over the chips
pull the heatpipes out
clean off the crap paste w arcticlean or icpropyl
put on the good stuff tx-2, ac5
just a small equal flat coveing
put the stuff back on/in
a way you go!

 

the thermal pad posted in that thread is actually shinetsu which is considered awesome stuff...

 

yeah i know, its pretty good compared to most oem crapastic pastes, but in comparison to the aftermarket leaders, at least according to several reviews around the web, the tx-2/ac5 stuff is significantly better, that is, as far as thermal paste is concerned.

 

some new news.

i just received a reply from the Nibitor guy, bios editor.

and apparently, common to mobile gpu's, the gpu itself doesn't have a seperate BIOS, but its bios is integrated into the systems bios.

hence why nibitor and gpu-z are not able to extract the bios to file.

which also means we are likely to be stuck with only software overclocking profiles and likely will never have a chance to manipuate the gpu voltage settings.

i'm going to email asus somehow and bug for a new bios.
i'll post the whereabouts when i find them, if you all would take a second to do that, perhaps we can get asus to release an updated bios with overclocking options like CLevo/sager recently did.

 

I don't think that asus caters to the same crowd as sager.. but I'd be glad to give it a try, do you have an email address for support? post it here and also mention the points that should be brought up in the email, but don't post an email for everyone to copy and paste, it will become very obvious very fast...

 

This is who puts on the thermal paste originally (at least at gigabyte...) which is why I usually do the above process for every chipset on every mobo I own, but I think that with the notebook it voids the warranty (mentioned in EB's disassembly guide...)

 

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...board_id=3&model=M50SV&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

that is the PETITION ASUS FOR OVERCLOCKING FEATURES TO BE ADDED TO THEIR NOTEBOOKS

please login there and post your agreement

they wont do it unless we can get enough requests!!!! please take a minute and do it for your asus notebook owning brothers!

 

Bugger. Sorry about that, guys. Hopefully they'll out a non-beta version soon that won't require an ATI driver to be installed. I'm hoping for a non-beta soon myself (beta can be totally freaky.) As soon as I get my little paws on an actual release I'll let you all know.

Oh, and if you're going to remove your heatsink/fan assembly from your computer (even to replace thermal paste) I'd be EXTREMELY sure first that you won't void your warranty. emporiumboutique has a disassembly guide here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=260993 and he stops short of removing those components noting that it would void your warranty. I'm not sure if it applies only to the CPU/Video Card or the heat pipes too. Anyone know for sure? If not, I'd contact Asus to verify...

---Update---

Doh! You beat me to it.

---/Update---

 

Did just what you said, am waiting (and hoping) for the "we're willing and able" reply rather than the "go dip in dog doody, what do you expect from a discontinued product" one.

As it happens, I'm leaving on a 2 week holiday this Saturday and I'm not backpacking with my spanking new shiny lappie. Call me squeamish, I don't do that. So, opportunity knocks, big time

Man alive, I hope they can fix it. I'm already seriously fond of this piece of bric-à-brac... but back it goes if they can't. Which I will enjoy about as much as root canal.

Anyways, thanks for the precious input guys. It's really important to know that one's nice new expensive bit of hardware is, if not faulty, at least subpar.

(I'm sorry if that last sentence sounds like I just got myself a penile implant. Not the case)

 

Best of luck JohnnyBosc.


I will consider new thermal paste later on, for now I am ok with what I have and the temps don't want to void the warranty taking this stuff off. Thanks Urbanos and everyone else for the advice.

It's funny that you guys are getting into this bios thing because I have been for the past few days looking for an upgrade( even through AMI the manufacturer of our current bios as they have some kind of upgrade feature but evidently not for Asus). I was wondering if getting this bios modded is possible. There are forums where people mod bioses for vista activation. I posted in a forum called mydigital life to see if modding bioses can unlock features but they never responded (bad bioses can really brick a computer so modded bios is a little scary). Maybe give Asus a call, they have 24/7 support.

It would be pretty neat if some key combination let us get into an advanced bios menu (Maybe Asus is holding out on us for fear of inexperience) but I have a feeling this is doubtful. I wish I knew more about bioses.

 

Are you talking about your cpu starting out at 52c...that's horrible...mines starts out at 39c with no extra cooling, and i only get up to 58c under load...with 2.75ghz overclock and no undervolting..and my post was originally about using new drivers for the 9500gs...nothing about the cpu..

 

I suppose that if it was below freezing in the room, by the time Vista got started up, the coolest Intel CPU there is might be a mite below 102F (39c), but if you're talking about room temperature, you might look at a different temp monitor, because that's not gonna happen with an M50.

 

Hi guys,
Anyone had such information at windws startup (WINXP SP3)?

For sure, that is not a problem with any program starting with windows bc i've got just a few of it.Did anybody see something like that?Thx for help

 

Hopefully this will help
http://support.mfm.com/support/troubleshooting/userauth/error7_winxp.html

 

Greetings to all the owners of Asus M50sv. I want to buy such laptop with T8300 CPU and 4GB DDR2. Please tell me about the display of this notebook. Many people say that it is very bad. What can you tell about this? I'm especially interested in the viewing angle and colour rendering. And the second question is: How long can it work from the battery? Because i want to sit with it on my sofa with WI-FI turned on.

I hope you will help me =) Thanks everyone who will answer, because it is very important for me.

 

First, I'd take a look at this one before you dive in. It has a T9300 and an ATI Radeon HD 3650 instead of a T8300 and NVidia 9500GS, and I believe another difference is it has a 1680x1050 display...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220306&Tpk=m50sa-ak023c

Second, the display is beautiful, and the viewing angle is on par with the rest of the laptops I've used. I searched high and low for a good laptop for a few months and this is the best bang for the buck. A real quality piece of work. Another Asus knockout, if you ask me.

 

I stand corrected (by myself.) If you use RMClock and make sure the CPU is horrendously downclocked when it's not in use (yay speedstep) then it can get down to 39-40C, but if you're doing ANYTHING on it, 39-40C is just an unachievable dream

 

Yea like idling at 38-42...when playing grid i'll alt tab out and look at everest and rmclock...and average out between, 57-62c after 20 minutes of play with OC

 

I just ran a 1-hour long OCCT (started at 39c) and I can't for the life of me with my 1.1v and my 2.8GHz get my CPU to run hotter than 65. I think I can live with that.

For accurate CPU temps, as someone said earlier in this thread, use HWMonitor. RMClock undertemps my CPU at least a couple of degrees.

 

This is getting very frustrating. My dvd burner seems to be broken. I've been trying to burn some data DVDs for archiving but the damn thing has errors all the time and I have to toss my disks, and it's expensive. So far I got one disc to burn on the second try, and another one has wasted two more dvds. I tried looking on the asus support site for the m50sv but I can't find the optical drive drivers. If anybody can help, I would really appreciate it. They aren't cheap dvds, either... memorex dvd+r dl 8.5gb dvds.

 

that seems fine....what settings in rmclock did u use