S96J Owners Lounge!!!

Ok, we dug up our original Everest test. (Duh, what took me so long )

If you have run Everest, do a search on DDR2 and you will find it in both the "BIOS Type AMI Display:Video" section and the "BIOS Type AMI Display: Video Adapter ATI" section. It shows DDR2.

Then do a search on GDDR3 and DDR3. You will find 0 results.

So, I hold to the position that "If you can't notice it with your naked eye...what difference does it make?" and "The lesson here is to not get caught up in all the marketing hype, and pay attention to what really makes a difference. "

Now I have been criticized here for calling someone a "n00b" and telling them to "Get a life" for challenging me on this and asking me to "...prove it". I have apologized for that because it was indeed in poor taste.

Let's hope that we have all learned important lessons here (including me) and that we can move on with happy faces

 

Maybe it shows DDR2 because the system memory being utilized for hypermemory is DDR2. Maybe it is DDR2 for that reason. *shrug*

 

That of course is a possibility. However how would you explain that a search for DDR3 or GDDR3 reveals nothing?

 

I think the best method to find out, is for someone who hasn't assembled their S96J yet is to write down what it reads on the memory chips, and then googling for it. Shouldn't be too hard to find the specifications using that information, at least that has worked for every stand-alone Radeon card I've had.

 

I hav ebeen having some real trouble deciding which labtop to get the hel 80 or the z/s69j. I am a gamer somewhat and i want to get the best performance gaming wise. Does anyone know which one would be better price and power wise.

I really wish the hel 80 used a ati 1600 that would seal the deal for me.

 

Hi! Can anyone of you provide the technical specs of the s96j (e.g. the hardware device ID's for modem, ethernet, audio etc.). I'd like to know if I'll be running into driver difficulties when running a linux OS. Much appreciated and thanks!

 

In benchmarks the X1600 in the 96J is marginally superior to the 7600Go in the HEL80. How this difference translates into real world gaming quality improvement, i can not say since i don't play really demanding games.

matik, I haven't had much luck with linux but if you get it working good then let me know how you did it.

 

I dug up the most similar tool to lspci for Windows, and uploaded a dump for you at http://www.hantsuki.net/pci.txt - should hopefully have all the info you need.

 

Waha, thanks, just what I was looking for!

 

I'm in the exact same boat right now. The Hel80 is going to cost you a bit more, but you get some additional features. From my understanding, the S96J seems to be slightly superior because of the x1600, but as the SaferSephiroth said, how that marginal difference translates to real world gaming is kind of unknown right now.

 

i love my s96j!! played doom3 and it was so crisp!.

I ran nhc and it says that my processor has ony 533mhz fsb when i thought the t2400 is 667mhz. Is NHC wrong? am i wrong? or maybe the wrong processor was put in the notebook?

NHC also says my battery wear is at 7%. I"ve read on other threads that it should be more like 16% after 6-8 months or so. Should i try and return the battery or see if it just stays at 7%? (I"ve had the notebook for less than about a week).


HAPPY 4th of july everyone!

 

Try downloading CPU-Z to get accurate details on your CPU.

Your battery is under warranty for 3 years. I wouldn't worry about what NHC says about its wear level

 

yea just nhc error. my bad.

 

Really, I just read the warranty, and it said the battery is under Warranty for one year. the rest of the system is three years.
"(The original primary AC Adapter and Battery are only covered for ONE YEAR from the date of purchase),"- Powernotebooks three year warranty,
http://powernotebooks.com/info/powerpro_warranty07-06.php

 

So, did you look at the date of the warranty you read? "For PowerPro laptops shipped after June 30,2006"

noodles12 shipped before June 30, 2006. Here is his warranty

 

Hey guys,

Provided nothing goes wrong, I should be the proud owner of an S96J tomorrow! Specs:

T2400
512 MB 667 MHz RAM
80 G 5400 RPM

It's not spec'ed out to the max, but I'm strapped for cash I'm sure I'll have lots of questions to follow.

 

Congrats and enjoy!

Im very satisfied with my S96J. Its a fantastic laptop, best i've ever owned.

 

So, are Core Duo computer prices going to go down as we get closer to the Core duo 2 release? Should I wait for the price to go down.

 

Thanx sephiroth. I'm really excited. I neglected to mention that the order will be filled by none other than Milestonepc.com and that the total came out to $1466 CDN. So far, everything's smooth with milestone, but I've had my share of problems with independent retailers, so if anything happens, u'll hear about it

 

Did u guys need to use these drivers? Are they big improvement over the included drivers or the default windows drivers? Which ones should I install and which ones should I forget?

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go!

THnaks
(still waiting on the s96j)

How come the omega driver is so small 4.17 megs
but the ati drivers on that site is 65.7 megs?

 

I believe it's because the ATI drivers comes with the ATI control panel, which takes up a lot more space than just the drivers.

 

The Omega Driver is actually a 22mb file to download. But, the main difference between the official drivers and the Omegas is that the official drivers use Catalyst Control Center (That .NET monster), wheraes the Omegas seem to use a modified version of the old ATI Control Panel (No longer distributed with the official drivers)

 

This is a good chance to remind everybody that they can choose to do a custome install of the ATI drivers and only install the driver and not all the bloat if they want.

I'm running the updated drivers form the Intel site and my 3DMark score is the same as the Omegas gave me.

 

ok in that case, I'll stick to the one on the intel site. But what about all those other drivers, like the:

Intel® PROSET Wireless software
Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility
etc.

Which of these do I need? Sorry, but I'm a newb when it comes to these things (my first laptop ever).

 

OK, the first rule of drivers and updates - if you aren't sure of what you are doing (and how to get back where you came from if something goes wrong), and the system is working without any problems, then you should leave them alone. If it ain't broke, don't try and fix it .

The new ProSet is causing some problems with the ATK and HControl on the W3 series, but I don't think I've heard any of the S96 owners raise the same issue.

 

amen. I'll leave the bios update alone

But I imagine certain things ARE mandatory like camera drivers and lan drivers etc. no? So I'm trying to find out WHICH are the mandatory ones. When I see things like drivers for intel chipset, I don't really know. Also, there appears to be sertek and d-max drivers. Which one is it? Sertek, right?

 

Hi! I want to buy Asus S96j this summer. I am in USA for my holiday. But do I have a warranty on this model of ASus in Europe? Could you answer me, please? Thank you guys!!

 

I am sorry but your warranty is provided by your dealer, which means if you buy it in the US you will have to send back to them for warrranty repair, and usually you have to pay for the shipping both ways.

If you were to buy an ASUS Ensemble model like the V6J, W3J or W7J you would get the One Year Global warranty from ASUS and you could have it repaired anywhere in the world that ASUS has a repair center.

 

While we are on the topic of drivers: Is there any way to get the CPU hotfix to work with Windows Vista? I want to try it out, but the one CPU core is always at 100% and the hotfix on the driver disk doesn't work.

 

I've been having this problem where the screen will not come back when I return from standby. I can tell the system is fine because I can use known key commands to shut down the PC, run some programs, etc.

I have not had a chance to mess around with my setup, but here's how's it's configured:

Omega 3.8.252 (Cat 6.5 based) drivers
Power Settings: Home/Office Desk

I used the drivers off the CD, and then updated with the ones one the Intel site.

Anyone else having this issue?

 

has anyone tried the Prey demo on the s96j yet?

 

The Intel chipset driver is the very first one you should load. I am surprised anything is working too well without it.

 

Prey is sweet on this system. I llet it auto-detect settings, and it put me at 1024x768 "high."

I ran FRAPS and during the most intense parts of the demo I was getting ~20fps, but mostly it stayed above 35fps. And I only have single-channel RAM (for what it's worth). I also had a few apps running in the background (Azureus, Trillian, etc.).

The game LOOKS awesome, and I can't wait for the full version.

 

Oblivion did that for me too, but I switched it to the proper res... 1280x800. Did you switch? Things look better

Krista

 

have anyone tried to get one in Canada? or perhaps Toronto for pick up? i will be in toronto for a few days, i was thinking wether or not i can get a laptop while i am there.
cheers,

ahdont
p.s great thread by the way, keep it up

 

I live in Canada in the West, so I ordered mine from NCIX.com. So far I am happy with them, I have all the peices except my DVD+-RW drive which is backordered.

 

yes, ive had a similar problem, but dont know the fix yet. Usually I just hit the sleep button when i cant turn the screen on and then just wake it up.

 

I was wondering, I am very interested in the S96J but i am wondering if i should just wait for the Z96J.

 

The wait for the Z96J is just about over

We expect to see them within the next 7-10 days. Then another 3-4 days to build, burn in and test and they will be going out the door...FINALLY

 

I've just purchased an S96J and am now wondering if I should have waited for th Z96J for the extra resolution.

Can people tell me if 1280x800 is sufficient?
I will be doing programming so will be reading alot of text. I'll also be doing the obligatory web viewing and gaming. Also would the higher res WSXGA+ 1680x1050 provider a better viewing angle?

I am just after a bit of comfort about my purchase that 1280 x 800 is sufficient and crisp. I have 10 days still to shipment so could change my order.

 

I got my S96J! Im so happy!

Im downloading the prey demo now!

 

I just got my S96J! I'll post my impressions later, but I need to ask some questions.

1. My laptop gets unnervingly warm. What utility can I use to monitor the temperatures? I tried speedfan, but only got the HD temp.

2. How can I tell if I got the 667MHz ram that I ordered? When I look at the system properties (right click my computer, then selecting properties), I see:
Genuine Intel(R) CPU
T2400 @ 1.83GHz
987 MHz, 512 MB of RAM
Physical Address Extension
What's that 987 MHz?

3. Is there anyway to customize those 4 hotkeys above the keyboard?

Thank you guys!

 

Mine does too, I wouldn't worry about it too much really because the components can handle it, especially as the fan doesn't kick in at 100% speed until the CPU hits 75 degrees celcius. I personally use Notebook Hardware Control to monitor the temps.

http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php

Speedstep (I believe that's what Intel calls it at least). The speed of the CPU is kept dynamic, and slows down when you don't do anything cpu intensive and then goes up to speed the moment you do anything that requires a bit more horsepower. Like playing a game for example.

 

you ****ting me? what about the S96J, have any news about the next shipment? it seems like it is OOS in the entire planet. too bad i am here in canada otherwise i will order from anywhere i can get one. life without a "personal computer" is a pain. sharing a computer with others is even worst........ meanwhile, i will maintain hibernate to wait for the either S96J or Z96J

ahdont

 

thank you very much waha!

And to prevent this from being a totally useless post, my 3dmark05 marks was 3917.

Actually, I have another question...my generic chkmail LED doesn't seem to work, even with outlook...

So CPU-Z said that my memory is Max bandwidth PC5300 (333MHz). Is that right? cuz I specifically ordered 667. Perhaps I need to set it up in BIOS?

 

DDR = Double Data Rate, so just take ~333 * 2 = 667

 

Ok, I REALLY want to buy this laptop because its such good value for money, but the thing is I live in England where I'm pretty sure it isn't being sold (and neither is any other barebone laptop system) which means I am having to buy it from an american site and get it shipped inernationally.

My questions are:
Do you know any sites other than www.rjtech.com which sell the laptop and ship internationally?

Do you know if I will get taxed upon it arriving in the UK (because if it does then suddenly it isn't such good value for money lol)

And do any of you know about changing the screen - my idea was to, instead of waiting for the z96j, buy the s96j and later on, when I have saved up some more money, upgrade to a higher resolution screen - since this is meant to be a customizable notebook after all and the user documentation shows how to disassemble/assemble the screen. However, I have a feeling that compatability issues won't simply be avoided by getting a screen the right size..

Any reponses would be greatly appreciated

Tom

 

I believe GenTech, and EXcaliberPC both ship internationally.

I'm not sure how picky customs in the UK are, but most likely you'd have to pay tax/customs on it, especially if the package is shipped directly from a company.

I personally had a friend in California order a S96J for me from MWave, and then reship it to me marked as gift, still had to pay taxes/customs on it tho (But not much, as it was marked as $100 )

I think the issue would be to find someplace to buy the actual screens/etc. I doubt we'll be seeing VBI components in regular computer stores.

 

Thanks very much for your reply. Something I could try then is getting a friend who regularly goes to america on holiday to buy it for me, and take it back with him, declaring it to be worth $100 in the same your friend did..

In reference to the screens idea, I had actually found some on sale on ebay taken from things like dell d800's, like here. This is probably me being very naive, but I had thought that the screen would work in any laptop in the same way a standard optical or hard drive will as long as it is the right size and uses the correct connections. The more I say it though, the more I begin to think I have completely underestimated the compatability issues with these sort of things... so much for my clever idea

If getting an s96j to the UK doesn't work, I don't suppose anyone knows of any other barebone laptop systems which ARE available in europe? (either that or any european reseller who stocks s96js for some reason..)

 

I love the WXGA resolution. As i imagined it is perfect for web forum viewing, viewing pdfs and documents. This resolution mates well with the 15.4" screen size. The screen is vibrant and bright, more than enough for my needs.

Im not much of a gamer, and the games i play don't even have options for resolution higher than 1024x768. I have no problems at all. Im trying to get up to speed on the latest games, but i've got a lot of catching up to do LoL!