S96J Owners Lounge!!!

On a notebook, yes. You probably can get that down pretty easily into the low 40s or high 30s if you work through it and decide what isn't critical that you might be able to live without.

 

I have around 27 processes running at start up, and in midusage, I have around 30-31 running(FF, winamp, Solid Works, and AVG)

 

On the contrary...it was very well crafted

 

It is better to have it off or in Hibernate when you put it in your bag. When in Suspend it will still be generating some heat.

Now, that doesn't mean you can't put it in your bag while in Standby, but since there is no downside to putting it into Hibernate that would be the better choice.

It is also better to let it cool, but it is not absolutely necessary. Even a few minutes will help.

 

Donald,

Would it honestly make any difference? The laptop is not going to get any hotter from being put in a bag if you go from powered on and normal useage to suspend(standby) and slip it in your bad. How much heat does ram generate while holding information anyway. It is not like it is rewriting or accessing anything. It is just sipping enough power to keep from losing the suspend data. That can't generate nearly as much heat as when the laptop is powered on.

Sure, if these parts had a lifetime of 500 hours power time, then I would shut it down. But leaving the laptop suspended in a bag isn't going to have near as dramatic an effect as what will happen to the laptop as dust builds up between cleaning time. Or nearly as much of an effect as playing a game for an hour.

I'm not going to argue that you shouldn't completely power off the laptop while it is in your bag. That's what I do. But what I'm saying is that if someone wants to carry their laptop somewhere(say, across campus) and doesn't want to turn it off just to have to turn it back on in 5 minutes, it is more than safe to suspend the laptop, put it in their bag, and carry it around like that. It would be safe like that for hours, really forever, except that it is not practical the leave the notebook in standby for more than 15~20 minutes.

If you guys are making such a big deal about the ram heating a few degrees over ambient, then you'll definately want to unplug your S96J's while it is powered off. The laptop heats up when it is connected to the AC. The touchpad, and underside of the laptop by the touchpad heat up a good 10 degrees above ambient just by the AC adapter being plugged in(notebook completely powered off- no lights, fans or anything, and no battery charging).

 

5 minutes fine. But keeping your laptop in the bag while its on, can, will and has happen to overheat the laptop. Had it happen to our customers before and even around the forum. Would not advice to keep it on in the bag

 

Chill JPZ...and then go back and re-read my post with a more in depth understanding of what I said.

 

thanks for the replies, guys. I think I'll just use hibernate, or turn it off if I don't need it soon...

 

Thank you Donald for your explanations regarding the s96j and Yonah/Merom today. I didn't expect such a thorough and honest approach, it was a pleasant surprise. I will get in touch on Monday and we can see if everything works out from there.

 

I know that it will. I've seen it happen before. But that kind of thing isn't going to happen with just the RAM powered on. Suspended/Hibernate/Full off won't have any noticeable effect on your battery life. Neither will letting your laptop cool before you put it in.

It may make your parts last a few days longer in their 10 year life span by letting it cool, but so would just not using it for a day. And component life varies far more by the specific part than whether or not it was cooled immediately.

To Donald,

Agree with what you pointed me back to. I could have sworn that last post wasn't there when I posted here last.

I vote drop the issue, as long as your laptop isn't powered on in your bag, you won't come across any issues.

 

Wow this JPZ kid thinks he knows more than Donald and Eddie. Unbelievable. Why would someone put their laptop in a bag while its on in the first place, lol.

 

Dude.

You know how many people I've seen just close their laptop and put it in their bag, while it is powered on? People who don't have their laptop configured to auto shutdown when the lid is closed. I agree, it's stupid, but people do it.

If you read through the last few pages, you would know that someone asked if it is OK to put their laptop in a bag while it is powered on. The answer is no.

Then they asked whether they could leave it in standby or hibernate in the bag, and whether or not they should let their laptop cool before closing it and placing it in a bag. The answer here is that it honestly doesn't matter. Putting a laptop that has been gaming for the last two hours, and has just been shut off, in a bag will not make it get any hotter. Sure, it may take longer to cool off, but does THAT matter? Laptops are designed to withstand the heat which they themselves produce. So exposing them to any temperature between that and room temperature isn't going to have any kind of affect on it.

Will standby produce heat? Yes. Would most people even notice if a notebook in standby was producing heat? No. The only thing that would be produce heat is the ram. But the ram isn't even doing any work. It just has enough power flowing through it to store the suspend data.

Go see for yourself. Take a laptop, put it in standby, and leave it in a case for the next 8 hours. When you come back, is it warm at all? Even if you can feel any heat at all, is it anywhere near as warm as when it is turned on? No. Therefore it isn't going to be doing any damage.

As to whether or not you should let your laptop cool before you put it in a case- as long as it is powerd off, it is going to cool down. Regardless of whether it is in a case or not. Does it matter whether the laptop cools in 10 minutes or 25 minutes? The temperature isn't going up, so no parts are going to be any more at risk than when you have your laptop on. So basically, if you are afraid to put a laptop in a bag while it is still warm, you should be afraid to power on your laptop.

One last thing which I mentioned before. The Z96J will get warm by just being plugged into an AC power source. Leave the laptop sitting without the AC plug in it until it is cool. Plug it into the wall, and come back in an hour. Pick up the notebook, and you will find that the touchpad and the chasis below the touchpad are quite warm. Warmer than if the notebook were left on standby in a bag.

IF YOU ARE AFRAID TO PUT YOUR Z96J IN A BAG WHILE IT IS IN STANDBY, YOU SHOULD BE AFRAID TO LEAVE YOU LAPTOP PLUGGED INTO AN AC POWER SOURCE.

 

How do I get a 3 hour battery life? I just got my S96J about 5 days ago and I tested without using the power adaptor and it only lasts for 2 hours. How do I configure the screen brightness etc, thanks.

 

With an S96J you should be able to get clse 4 hours. Use the FN key combo with F4 and F5 for brightness up down. Turn off your Wifi. Unplug any external devices. Make sure powerplay is enabled and set to max battery. Make sure to use P4G. Set P4G to max battery. Leave brightness at what max battery sets it to, or you can move it up one notch. You should now get close to 4 hours.

Oh, and make sure you have speedstep enabled, and that you're not doing anything intensive. Nothing more demanding than a little web-browsing or word processing otherwise your battery life will do down.

 

How do you know if powerplay is enabled and set to max battery? Where do I get speedstep?

 

Speedstep should be enabled by default in the BIOS. To find powerplay options, right click on your desktop, and click "catalyst control manager". You should get a big window with settings. If it asks you if you want basic or advanced options, choose advanced. Look on your left at all the tab options, and click the one near the bottom that says powerplay. Make sure it is enabled, and set for max battery.

 

Just purchased my s96j - t2300e, 1gb ocz, 100gb 5400rpm, dvdrw - from mwave(barebones, cpu, wireless, dvdrw) and newegg (memory and hdd), and was wondering a few things:

It seems like everyone recommends buying from gentech or Powernotebooks instead of other companies because of the better tech support and warranty. Has anyone had serious s96j VBI warranty issues or problems with Mwave before? I don't plan on having to send it back often (s96j has pretty good build quality, and I should be able to fix most problems) and I was able to save around $150 by going the mwave/newegg route ($1242 at gentech, $1065 how I ordered, although my config has t2300 instead of t2400 which is the lowest Gentech seems to offer)

Has anyone tried the VBI Customized Notebook Panels (from the Fedex Kinkos store)? The normal panel looks decent but plain, and the panels look nice, but I can't seem to find a real review of them anywhere.

Will I see much difference in ram speeds between the ddr2 533 that I ordered and ddr2 667? I wasn't aware that the s96j could take 667 until after I ordered the 533 stick, but don't latency issues make them perform similarly anyway? Will the 667 perform better with the merom (which I plan to upgrade to once the price drops)?

Thanks for the help

 

The speeds arent that notable, so if your can afford it, go with the 667. But if not the 533 is fine.

 

I remember seeing an article here on NBR that suggested some 533 ram is faster than some 667 ram because of memory timings. Makes sense to me. When you overclock a desktop, it is better to throw in a divider and underclock your ram while tightening timings than to loosen timings so that the ram will run faster. Same applies to laptops. Slower 533 with tight timings will run faster than 667 with loose.

For warranty- in almost every case you will be going through your reseller for your warranty. It depends on whether or not you put your system together, and if your reseller will not void your warranty for opening up your notebook to do repairs yourself.

The reason people buy from reliable resellers is because you can really get screwed if you buy from a poor one. Higher chance of getting a DOA laptop, but the worst part is that RMA's will be a pain. I had to RMA my Uniwill 5 times in a row to ibuypower to get it fixed. Each RMA was about 2 months. Spent just under 11 months total in RMA.

The idea is that you buy from somewhere that has good warranty policies so that even in the worst case scenario, you will be well taken care of. You probably won't have much of a problem. But you might, and that is a risk that some people don't like to take.

 

I bought my S96J from mwave, and would do so again. I did end up returning my S96J in the end, but mwave provided me with good service. I will say though that if you have to rma it, go with replace instead of repair. When they "repaired" mine, they just put all my parts in a new shell, and when they did, they didn't seat the ram properly and killed one of the ram slots.

 

Ah I'm not a hardware expert, but I am puzzled by your reasoning for wanting to buy from mwave again. The build quality of the S96J is excellent, and it takes a truly unskilled or uncaring pair of hands to screw up the insides so badly as to physically destroy a component. I can't imagine one of the better resellers doing the same thing even once...never mind twice according to your post. Just because they agreed to fix you up with a new S96J after destroying your old laptop due to incompetence doesn't mean you should buy from them again. Unless you enjoy RMA's.

 

OK, here are the reasons I would buy from them again:
1. They had/have better prices than anyone else I have found.
2. They were/are able to get the laptop to me faster than anyone else I have found.
3. I prefer to assemble things like this myself.
4. I do all my own techsupport.
5. Their repair support was bad, but their replace support was great.

If you are not looking for the best price, fastest service, and don't want to get your hands dirty, buy from GenTech or PowerNotebooks.

 

Gentech got mine to me in 2 days after ordering. And I built it myself. And I haven't needed tech support.

Price difference was around $40 when I ordered. I consider it a tip for all the great service they offer to people on the other forums. And they did little things like make sure we all got the missing screws Asus forgot with the initial shipment and replaced one of my mini pci-e screws when I stripped it loosening it and are working with Intel on the X1600 graininess issue.

 

I didn't realize/remember that GenTech would ship it as parts. I thought they were one that required a 48 hr burn-in or some such. If not, I appologize. For $40, the additional support might be worth it. They were out of stock when I ordered, and if I remember correctly the price difference for my system was more like $100-$150. I did order my hard drive and ram from newegg though.

 

I optioned for them to build, as I wanted to build it myself, but since it came free with the OS purchase, why not? Ive seen that the price now has gone up a bit since June(1210.00USD oooh), but its still worth it to purchase from him.

 

Yeah, they're now charging a premium for the DVDRW drive. So the difference with shipping looks to be $80 or so because of that. Again, these things fluctuate.

 

My S96J is really weird. I put it off with my power adaptor plugged in it and let it for one night but when I turn the laptop the red light on the battery flashes. Why's that? It means that the battery is not full right?

 

im just wondering, do u guys have any problems with yoru optical drive spinning up to what seems to be overly high rpms, sometimes for no reason, but often when i first put in a game disk, and making a horrible rattling. it almost makes me wonder if someone forgot to put things in the bracket right. i got one of the early shipments that people were waiting for for months and had a few other little assembly freaks, almost seems like powernotebooks figured customers had been waiting long enough, and rushed to assemble them(bottom panel not being seated quit right), im just wondering if someone forgot screws, or if this is normal from a notebook drive

 

Hmm... I have noticed this with certain high-speed CD's. No problems with DVD's though, or lower speed CD's. It seems that it is the drive tray rattling. The cover on the end is rattling up against the notebook case. Try either holding the try in place while running a cd, and you'll notice the rattling goes away. There's still a fair amount of noise, but it's not bad it all.

Drive works fine for normal use. Meaning gaming, watching movies, listening to music, and since burn speeds are no where near read speeds, you can burn whatever you want without a problem. Installing programs is one of the main things that brings this about.

To Equinox- The red light should not be flashing. I've never seen mine flash. The red light coming on means it is charging. If it is flashing, it probably means something is messed up. Either a faulty battery or power adapter, or possible a failing power circuit on the laptop. I would try re-calibrating the battery, and then contacting your reseller.

 

For lack of noise and vibration at spinup, I'd put my S96J up against anything. I've had a half dozen other notebooks pass through my desk at work from Toshibas to Dells and some of them sound like small jet planes taking off.

So, ya, I'd surmise that something wasn't secured properly.

 

No I mean it's not flashing but it just keeps on! It should stop right when the battery is full?

 

It should stop when the battery is fully charged, but if you accidently unplug the cable, and plug it back it will stay on. I had this problem when I first got the S96j, but its not a big deal as the battery is charged, and a single percentage wont matter.

 

yeah but it's just like 2 days I've plugged my S96J with the power adapter and I never unplugged it. Is it normal if the red light keeps flashing for 2 days?

 

So I ordered my S96J two days ago. I've been trying to read up on this owner's lounge...but it's so freaking long. I got to about page 57 or something...I think I'll just stop now. Anything important within the last 1/3? lol

 

you know when the s96j was first on the market it was 550 at first from everyone.

now its months later and its 650 or more.

Probably the only example of this in the computer market youll ever see.

 

as long as i remember the barebones has been around 700, but then again i was only looking at reputable dealers. (sorry if gentech or someone had it for 650 or something, i was refering to the places that u can order your notebook, a ps2, and a carton of eggs and hope at least one of them arives unbroken)

 

Mwave.com is fairly reputable. I got mine for $580 there. They'd had it for $550 just a couple days before. They have it for $555.18 right now.

Krista

 

If you turn off your S96J and put it on a power adaptor then does the red light on the battery blinks?

 

I just got my S96J in on Tuesday from Ken at GenTech. I have been extremely satisfied with the notebook thus far...and I haven't even installed any real third party software yet! Just the look, feel, and sound of the notebook is awesome, and I've never been one to dwell too much on the appearance of a computer. The DVD-RW spins at what seems like 52X speeds during data transfers and makes one hell of a ruckus when it does, but that's the way (uh huh uh huh) I like my optical drives. And of course being the only guy with a Merom laptop in my classes gives me automatic bragging rights. I can't wait until I install FEAR to test out the gaming capabilities.

 

Im still extremely happy with my S96J since I got it in mid-July.

Works great, no problems, love the performance.

 

The battery sometimes does that. If I unplug it after shutting down, and then plug it back in, it doesnt do it. Its not a big issue, as the battery is still charged and keeps the voltage(I checked at work with the volt meter).

 

Is their a way to make the audio/video player hotkeys to work with itunes or some other progam instead of asus dvd?

 

wow is this thead dead right when i start to say something?

 

Not sure, I dont think so.

 

No... Everyone went back to school.

I used to hang around the forums for an hour or so every day, but since school started I have probably been here a total of half an hour.

 

Hello. I've had my S96j for a little over a week now and I have a few questions if anyones still checking this thread (sorry if these have been gone over before, I did read most of the pages up till now but it is a lot to go through).

one: I read through most of the graininess issue thread and I am wondering if that bios flash would be appropriate For me to impliment? I havent done much movie watching yet but it seems fine in my favorite games so far.

How much cpu scaling can speedstep support. Im running notebook hardware control and have battery settings set to (max battery) and when its on battery it only goes down to about 1.72ghz. THis gives me a battery life for screen at 2/3 and everything except teh wireless card off (just web browsing usage) of about 2 hours (estimated by NHC). Im hoping I can extend this a little bit without getting a larger battery. The ati powerplay function is enabled as well and does throttle my gpu clocks down a ways. I read a mention of playing with teh voltage control using NHC but I dont have that option for some reason, currently am reinstalling it to see if that helps (edit, nope those still are uneditable).

second Im having a lot of trouble with my left mouse botton. It is very insensative, cant really use the left 1/3 of it too well. But most annoyingly; its clicking is LOUD, so much that it makes me worry about using this laptop in a quiete setting. It is not an issue remotely worth returning it for or anything,but is there some way i can get into that mechanism and play around with it?

And last: what are the exact specs for the wecam/camera? I am perfectly happy with its video performance, on par with what I'd expect from that, but it will only take pictures at 640X480 res using the drivers supplied with teh CD. Earlier in this thread (pg 44 I think) somone mentioned that it is supposed to be a 1.3 megapixel camera, if so how can I get it to take photos at that rez?

But overall I am perfectly happy with this purchase, love this laptop to peices! specs are: 2ghz dual core merom, 2 gigs corsair ddr2sdram, atii 1600....

 

OK... nothing you can do about the mouse buttons. I've had no problems with sensitivity. Never once missed a click.

1.3mp isn't a resolution. It's a quality rating for how many pixels it'll push. Not sure how to get it to take pictures in resolutions other than 640x480, but I honestly don't care.

If you don't notice any graininess, don't flash the BIOS. It's still a BETA, plus if you don't know what you're doing you can really screw up the laptop.

I am not all too familiar with the merom, but the yonah will scale down to 1ghz(998 mhz or so). I would think the merom to do the same. The merom is still new, and power management software for it is quite buggy. If you wanted long battery, then a low or ultra low voltage core duo, or even a normal yonah would have been a better choice.

Turn your brightness almost all the way down, turn off the wifi, and get your cpu to scale properly and you should come close to 4 hours battery life.

 

Thanks for the prompt reply.

I know 1.3 megapixels isnt a resolution, im just used to the world of digitcal cameras where that would corrispond to a roughly 1280X1024 resolution. I guess it could be different in webcams (resolution * fps maybe?) I just want to be sure im getting the most out of it for still pics.

I understood the choices in processor. Raw horsepower in AC mode was my highest priority, but I just want to get all the battery life I can when off it. having checked, notebook hardware control has released a fix for the core2 duo, but it still dousnt give me access to the cpu voltage controls. I guess I'll have to wait to see if the next version does. I'll keep working at the battery life.

and since it is not an issue for me, I'll wait on the bios flash until its out of beta. Thanks again!

 

I've taken videos in something around 1280x760 something odd resolution, but it is very choppy compared to 640x480. I don't know how to take pictures in any resolution other than 640x480 with the existing software. 3rd party camera applications very well may allow you to take pictures in other resolutions.

 

Hello,
Does anyone know which DVD drives can be used in the S96J? Or at least the method for determining such information? I have searched this thread with no real answer to my question. (I did find that the VBI DVD model for the S96J can be purchased from Mwave, which I am hesitant to do since they don't have the best reputation.) Is it just better to buy one with the barebones from the reseller?
Thanks for your time.
Zack