S96J Owners Lounge!!!

It's not any particular pictures. Any solid dark image will show it easily. You can open Paint and draw a large dark blue square and you'll see speckles of light blue throughout it.

 

Hi guys! Now I know, that I dont have a warranty service in Europe with this model of Asus. So is there any bad experience with Asus s96j? Do I need that warranty? Will there be problems with repalcing keyboard (because od size if there are differences between european keyboards)?
Pls, give me an advice

 

man, waiting for a computer to use is such a torture.........
i assume this is the only place where we can get the latest information on the Z96J arrival....... this is painful

ahdont

 

mrar random pop in. So many more people have one now 0___o

Mine randomly died end of June, like wouldn't turn on. But they fixed it and now it is back and fine and I still have all my data. Soyeah. It's a me thing though.

 

yours died? How long did you have it for cassandra? Also, where did you buy it from.

 

mmm, as I said, it's a me thing more then anything else. As in, things I have spite me. As in, it broke on my birthday to spite me and I wasn't even surprised cos its how things work. Had it for a bit less then a month, from Powernotebooks, but I wont say its them, because things happen, and they fixed it, the warranty and all that (though fed-ex failed on the overnight shipping thing back...again a me thing, though also bad of fed-ex because if someone pays you to do things in a certain time, you should). It works now, and I have all my stuff, so not complaining. A temporary inconvenience more then anything else. Apparently the tech guy said they had to replace the shell or whatnot. Eh, it happens. They took care of the problem so I'm satisfied. Wouldn't say its a reflection on the laptop if I'm the only one it happened to, because there's always gonna be one or two of something that messes up, be it car, computer, tv, etc. Hope this made sense, very tired and brain dead right now.

 

I noticed screen graininess too, but only for certain colours. It's almost always there for black and sometimes for white.

 

Oh I understood. Maybe others have more graininess than I do, as I don't think my picture would show it well enough for you to see. I wonder if a screen shot would capture it... Hrm, if it didn't then the video stream that's being sent to the LCD is good. If it does capture it then it's probably the vid card / driver. I'll try that tonight.

Krista

 

Glad yours is all fixed and everything Cassandra. I pretty much decided on the s96 after some of your posts and got mine from powernotebooks too.

As for the graininess.... do all s96's have this problem because i don't know what it is but the screen and colors don't bother me. Either i prob don't have the eyes to tell or maybe you all have a bad batch?

 

I think I see what you are talking about. I have my screen at 100% brightness and change my desktop color to dark colors and I see some very faint grain when I get my face 6 inches from screen. I can not detect it more that a foot away. Is this what all the fuss is about? I have literally viewed thousands of pictures and have never noticed it before. What are the real world issues with this? Where are people viewing solid blocks of color? Are there some screens that are worse than others?

edit: I only see it for some colors. I do not see it for black or white. I really have to look hard for it...very hard to see. This is a non-issue for me.

edit 2: I just compared the same picture with Photoshop at actual pixels view with 2 other desktop LCDs and saw absolutely no difference.

 

Yes, it looks like all S96Js have this issue. Im on the same boat as fliptwister, the issue is not very significant for me.

EDIT: I take that back. I just noticed them while watching a movie.

 

Then you must be seeing something else, FlipTwister. I'll take a shot tonight so you can see.

The problem is that it makes movies look static-y and, though not "visible" past a foot the spreckels change the overall hue of a black screen to just a dark gray.

 

Ooops.... The Z96J doesnt look like what you pictured. We just received one today and it is all silver on the back lid and doesnt have the portbar out like you mentioned.

The Z96J glare type screen looks awesome in person. Hope to do a full review by the end of the week.

 

to back-track, so that 'empty space' really is an empty space? WTF? and to get back on topic, thankyou fliptwister for reassuring me on ordering this lappy...

 

I see some of this on my LCD TV when it's not in hi-def mode.
I'll stare at both some this weekend and see.. maybe it's very common and just noticed by people who do a lot of graphic work or who are very picky about image quality (especially when moving from playing a game on a CRT to this) like me.

But it is annoying...

Krista

 

that is correct , it is a flat surface without any dock hook up

 

Can anyone take pictures of the so called graininess? I'm not completely sure what you mean. I have ordered it, but what can I expect when it turns out I have the same problem as you? Some faint 'textures' shining trough the images? I'm getting a bit worried!

 

Hmm, did some research. As it appears, Dell uses AUO screens frequently. And there are always numerous complaints about so-called textures/sparkles (search the forums). Is the grainy screen thing similar to the complaints about the Dell screens? Because I think it is. Although I haven't seen both of the screens.

 

Hmm, Krista, I sympathize. That graininess is starting to bother me. I don't do so much graphic design, but today I had to stare at a 2D FFT of an image and I couldn't tell apart the actual dots from the grainy dots

It's most severe for me when displaying the color black, which is most of the FFT image!

 

I'll get a shot of it tonight and post it.

A notebook screen is a huge deal and this is no little flaw if, in fact, it's not somehow software related and there's no doubt it has to be covered by the warranty. Though I may wait to exercise it until I do a Merom upgrade so I don't end up doing it twice.

 

quick question about the merom. Wouldn't the whole system have to be 64bit? why is it that only the processor needs to be changed while the width of the bus remains the same? enlighten a newb please.

 

It is the chipset that determines what processor is supported, and what the FSB is. The Intel 945 chipset supports both the Yonah (Core Duo) and Merom (Core 2 Duo) processors.

 

So, check it out. My screen isn't grainy any more. No spreckels at all.

The only thing different is that I turned it off the past couple days while I was away and just rebooted it. Going to get the temps up with some gaming to see if this might be heat related.

Man, sans the spreckels, this screen really is nice. I was looking at some more screens today at the store and this one stacks up real well, imo.

 

This graininess, I dont have any of it. Its actually a really nice screen. If you get a desktop pic from Airliners.net(PLUG!) of an airplane or such and see the colors, it looks really good. If people need pics, ask.

 

I'll be testing a Merom processor in a Z96J or S96J soon. Hopefully, the current BIOS that ASUS is shipping these notebooks with will already support Merom. I know the Compal units already support Merom right out of the box.

 

good choice

ahdont

 

what?? u gotta be kidding me. that's all it takes? Somehow I think our speckles are different...

 

I saw the grainyness people have been talking about for the first time today. I had rebooted, and when I fired up my Putty windows again (black background) it looked like the black color was really... texturized. I then uninstalled the Omega driver, installed the latest ATI driver from Intel's download page, rebooted, and it was gone.

edit: if it happens again, I'll try and take a picture of it with my digital camera

 

Does anyone know of a reliable way to control the fan on the S96J?

 

Notebook Hardware Control would be a good option.

BTW,anybody have still the standby issue(screen wont come back on). I thought I fixed it with windows updates, but it happened today again. Only thing ive done since the fix is install the new ATi drivers from the Intel website.

 

Can someone confirm this? If it works, then great!

But what about the modem issue?

 

ok the graininess on my s96j has gone... except for during video playback. it seems that this problem is pretty widespread on the x1600 video card. some mac users and acer users have reported the same problem. i tried installing different codecs and using different vid players but doesnt get rid of the video playback graininess.

i think a new thread is needed.

 

It seems like thedoubtfulguest has already tried using different video drivers to no effect.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1467816

I didn't think it would be that simple

EDIT: can someone post that intel driver website again?

 

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

 

Well my issue i thought was won't come back, but it seems as if it didn't totally go into standby. I don't know if this is your situation as well. I found out that my firewall (Kerio 2.1.5) had some processes that wouldn't shut down and that is what kept the computer on while the screen went ahead and went into standby. This caused my computer (when i put it to standby) to turn off the screen but everything else was still in: lights blink when pressing caps lock and all that.

Hope this helps even a little.

 

With mine is that after it goes to the screen saver the monitor shuts off(stand by). When I want to go back to the notebook, it doesnt turn the monitor on and I can hear the processor and also when I shut off the notebook, I can hear the sound. Im not sure what it is and Intel drivers didnt help either. Its a small issue as I most of the time close my notebook lid and when I open it up, it comes right on so its not too important just a snag.

 

I already have it and it's not implemented in this release (1.10 B3).

 

BTW, I noticed that the screen graininess went away after playing Warcraft 3 and Doom 3, at least for the color black. It still remains for certain greys and whites but since those aren't so noticeable in the first place, they're forgivable. But everytime the computer comes back from the restart or standby, graininess returns. Give it a try.

Is there an integrated graphics that the comp uses by default that may be giving the crappier image quality? And the x1600 only springs to life when there's something that makes use of it?


And pleez, will someone pleez help me out on the modem issue? It just refuses to see a dial tone

 

if ati tray tools is running it causes graininess by default on my s96j. i had to turn the brightness in the video options or something to -1 in order to rid the graininess.

 

Yay! Ordered mine!

S96J
T2400
80GB 7200rpm
1024mb 667mhz

This is my first laptop, hope to have lots of fun with it

btw: is it possible to make the dvd-rw drive region free?

 

Probably if you hack it somehow.

Good Luck!

 

are the problems with the grainniness solved now?

 

Donald, please tell me you recieved the Z's. :asus:

 

We should all compare our LCD model numbers, if we can find them, and see if we have the same screens (those who have speckles). I'm going to pull my machine apart tomorrow and put some arctic silver on the GPU, and also start wiping the system for a full clean install.

Krista

 

Just a quick question to the people who claim to have been able to get rid of the grainyness. Is it actually gone or has it just been reduced to a point where you don't notice it all the time?

 

it's gone

And krista, I'm sorry but I don't want to take mine apart. If there's another way I can contribute, just let me know.

Now, another discovery: I tried playing Halo and the graininess DIDN'T disappear! That made me confused. But then I remembered that Halo was the only game that I played on native resolution. So that might be it. I later tried switching resolutions using control panel, but it didn't get rid of the speckles. I guess, if u want speckles to go, start up a game of warcraft!

(modem issue anyone??)

 

Grr, delivery of my S96J has been postponed with 6 ~ 10 days today.

 

Some one said that there was a sticker that was on the screen and it showed the Screen Model Number, so im gonna see if I can find it or not.

 

That's funny, I first started noticing it while I played World of Warcraft.
*sigh*.

I wonder if the Macs with this problem are using a screen from the same manufacturer.

Krista

 

Actually my sister's Acer 5672 (with the X1600 128) has the same graniness issue. Another hope that this is a GPU issue that can be solved with a driver update.

Krista