S96J Owners Lounge!!!

To change the brightness you would prob use the special function key and the corresponding key, ill tell you tomorrow because that is when my s96j arrives. I checked the tracking number this morning and it has finally arrived to my local UPS warehouse, yippe.

 

Hey guys,

I just bought a new S96J from gentech. It works fine while I’m using it, but sometimes it won’t shutdown. It worked fine for a few days after I got it, but then when I went to shutdown, either by menu or by the button, WindowsXP would shutdown normally, but then it would reboot immediately as if I had selected “Restart” instead. I did some research and deselected the “Restart on system failure” box, but that didn’t change anything. I get no BSOD or any type of stop message. It just restarts. It does something similar if I enable hibernation and try to get it to hibernate. It saves the state and seems to shutdown, but then just immediately resumes.

I did downloaded a driver update for my wireless card, and the problem went away for a couple days, but now it’s back. I have no idea what is causing this. Has anyone else had this issue? All of the documentation I can find seems to be related to trying to run XP on old hardware, but my computer is brand new!

Please help!


Intel VBI Asus S96J Core Duo Barebone 15.4 Inch WXGA/ATI X1600 256MB/Built-in Webcam/Combo
CPU Intel® Yonah Core-Duo T2400 1.83GHz 2M 667 FSB
RAM Corsair 2GB DDR-2 667 SODIMM (2X1024)
HD Seagate Momentus 80GB 7200rpm S-ATA
Internal Wireless Card Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 Tri-mode 802.11a/b/g
Display 15.4" WXGA 1280 x 800 Color Shine (Glare)
VGA ATI Mobility X1600 256MB PCI Express
Optical Drive 8 x DVD-RW Dual Layer Super Multi

 

quick thought from one of the lintier corners of my brain (in lieu of a real answer):

i don't have an s96j, so can't look myself... but have you poked around your bios? i think i remember a discussion at some point involving some "wake on lan" option.. i think once i had a bizarre driver problem with my keyboard on my desktop that was doing this too...

 

i'm most likely going to order an S96J from gentech sometime after i get back from Cancun around June 10, hopefully by then rickyskater will have his in and i can see how you like it since i plan on getting the same one...i'll be using mine for internet, some basic apps, engineering software, and then games too... btw, been out of the PC gaming for a while, what games do yall plan to play on ur S96J?

 

I have played F.E.A.R., HL2, and Quake 4 on my S96j. They all play great at native res (1280x800) and at mostly maximum settings.

 

Dude i cant wait till i get mine tomorrow, ill keep you updated twisted racer. It only like 10 minutes away in the UPS warehouse. So close yet so far.
The wake on Lan seems like a good place to start, but if you shutdown the comp wont wake of that will it, i thought only in hybernations when it will wake on lan.

 

haha, rickyskater, i know what u mean about the UPS warehouse...when i bought my ipod it was 2 day shipping and left on a wednesday so i was like it'll be in by friday, but got delayed and then had to wait till monday even tho it sat at our UPS station all weekend! thanks for keeping me posted

 

Hey just a girl,

have you figured out ur problem yet or are you still having the problem, it worries me cause i dont want to have any problems with my s96j tomorrow when i get it.

 

No, no solution yet. I am hoping to figure out how to "poke around my BIOS" without doing permanant damage.

Ken at gentech said he'd never heard of any of his machines having this problem, so I'm thinking it's probably some software that I've added, but I really haven't installed anything that's not pretty mainstream. I really dont want to uninstall everything, but if I can't figure it out, I'm going to have to start peeling things back.

Part of me wants to blame it on the fact that its a custom built system where not all of the bugs or conflicts have been worked out yet. (why-didn't-I-just-buy-a-Dell sorta thoughts.) But my gut says its a software thing since the problem went away and came back again.

Hopefully, if other S96J or other BuiltOn owners have had the same problem we can figure it out.

 

Oh and I had a problem with my DVD drive reading a game initially that I thought was an anti-piracy issue, but it turns out it just hadn't been assigned a region yet.

 

Wake On Lan will work with computers that are off...I believe, because the NIC card is always receiving power whether through the PSU or the cable. (I can see my NIC indicator lights on our servers at work even when they're shutdown all the way)

So it's highly likely that another computer on your network is trying to communicate with the notebook or you aren't using a router with a firewall and you're picking up packets over your broadband.

The first step should be to disable to wireless card in Device Manager and then try turning it off. That should rule out WOL.

 

Ok the wireless is ruled out. I left it on standby all night and all day while I was at work. On coming home tonight I can turn off with no trouble. Nothing is different except that it has been sitting doing nothing. Is it possible that somehow the power management software, Power4Gear, is interfering with turning off my computer if it is hot?

 

For all you S96J owners out there, I have a question. I have a nearly 4 year old laptop on which when I play any games on a resolution less than native (less than 1024x768), it becomes a window in the screen with black borders around it. Essentially, the screen can't display lower resolutions full-screen. I'm not sure whether this has to do with the GPU or with the screen, but I was wondering whether this problem occurs on the S96J. When you play games on a lower resolution than native, does it display it in full screen or in a smaller centered window on the screen?

 

The X1600 has enough power to handle all games that will come out within the next 2years or so on pretty decent graphics detail. After that, when DX10 vid games come out hardcore, you might have to tune down the graphics.. Yes the S96J is able to handle lower resolutions at full screen, but there is a problem. The image doesn't look as clear, and looks rather blurry, fuzzy and the text especially is distorted. This problem is not just to this laptop, every laptop experiences this problem. Some do more or less, depending on the quality of the screen.

 

The S96J native resolution should be good enough for playing games on as is though. Graphics card is good enough I don't see why you'd need to make it any smaller 0__o

 

Should I take this as an indication that the Z96J would be even worse? Because then I'm for sure going with the S96J over the Z96J. I don't think even an X1600 can handle Battlefield 2 on 1680x1050.

 

^ I think it an as long as you get 2 gigs of ram, however, you'd hafta tune down the detail significantly.

 

on average, how long did it take you guys to actually get your notebook from the time you ordered it? i need mine in August when school starts but i didn't know if i needed to order it now so it would be here in time or what...

 

Order it now for August? No Way. I ordered mine on Monday May 15, and received it on Thursday May 15 from Gentech. The only reason a laptop would take months to receive is if it is on backorder, which will most likely not happen to the s96j.

 

I'm thinking of getting the s96j in the very immediate future. Just wondering, have any of you managed to run linux or even mac osx on it?

 

mac osx on a windows pc is sort of a large project because osx doesnt sell an installation cd

the percent of people who have bothered to do this is so small that i doubt it includes any s96j users

 

I read somewhere in these forums that ATI GPUs are not really friendly with Linux. Double check that. I think Chazman can help you with this, as he out out amazing sticky regarding GPUs.

I am getting mine next week. Ordered it last week. Small delay is mainly due to Intel Core Duo price drops and also powernotebooks takes about 2 days to test your new toy back and forth to make sure there is no problems with it when it is out the door. I like it much better, then just simply receiving laptop with full of issues and then send it back for repairs. Get it right the first time! - is great thing.

Also, last time i checked - powernotebooks.com had S96J on backorder until 6/15/06. I think as this laptop is getting more and more popular for its excellent value it will get push even further.

vasylko

 

im planning on buying from powernotebooks but with them being on backorder should still be able to get it before august if i order around june 10th (after my openhouse when i have money) and still get it before august right?

and if i order it with only 512 ram(all i can afford) i can up date to 1.5 gb of ram later correct?

will 1.5gb ram be enough to run Spore when it comes out?

 

If you buy around June 10th you should receive it before the end of June

Yes, you can add another piece of memory later..., which will be plenty of memory to run Spore. The video card is the most important thing for games, so anything 1,024MB or better will be fine for system memory.

 

The reason it is on backorder from PowerNotebooks.com now is that we are currently sold out...and so is ASUS. We are told by ASUS to expect their next shippment around mid-June.

 

guys i just got my s96j like 3 hours ago. Its incredible. ....be back to talk in a few i just need to get bf2 installed.

 

I just ordered an S96J from powernotebooks tonight, so now the waiting begins. I'm not in any particular hurry, as long as I get it before mid-late august. Looking forward to it!

 

Oh man... if backorders start slaughtering these things I may be in trouble. I was planning on ordering mine later in the summer but maybe I can get my dad to lone me the rest of the money for it... I don't know... I'm worried now.

 

I don't think you should worry. The first shipment just flew, but there will be a steady supply once the next shipment comes in.

At first we didn't really know what to expect, but now we do so the supply should be pretty steady all summer.

However don't wait until August if you can help it because it seems so many people do that (August is always the biggest sales month of the year), we could run into delays caused simply because we all will be building so many it will take longer to get the orders shipped.

 

donald,

i'm sure you've heard this question, and i apologize if you've already answered it....but how likely will you think it will be for asus to release a bios update for merom compatibility?

 

I am sure they will.

It isn't if, it is when...and the answer to that would require a crystal ball at this point.

 

that is reassuring to hear! i'm sure there are some s96j owners that are sighing a sigh of relief.

 

id just throw down 40 from powernotebooks to upgrade it to 1gb in 1 dimm.

ok check this out.


if they dont let you order it with 0 ram, i think you should buy it with 1 gb dimm.
its dual channel ram, in order to get it going at maximum speed u need 2 dims of the same size and speed. so ur 1.5 gb has 2 different dims.

and in order to get it to 2 gb dual channel speed, ur going to have to throw away the 512 mb dimm u bought with the machine and buy yet another 1 gb dimm. so ur wasting money.

 

Here's a question. How much video memory are you guys showing under your adapter properties? right click desktop > properties > settings > advanced > adapter.

Are we all showing 512MB even with the Omegas?

 

yes, mine says 512

 

So it seems like S96J steal another 256MB (Hypermemory?)

I did not receive my laptop yet so I can not check

However, is it bad? I am not familiar with Hypermemory stuff, but heard that
X1600 can not fully unilize its own 256MB. Why the hell it need to steal another 256 from laptop

Any thoughts?

 

i forget where to change the hypermemory , maybe the bios?

 

A few games can use 512MB for textures......Doom 3 on Ultra settings is one example.

The X1600 can definitely utilize 256MB, not sure where you heard that. And ATI seems to suggest you suffer no penalty for hypermemmory until a game needs it. I disagree with their theory, but it's been impossible to find benchmarks with an apples to apples comparison to back up either claim. Most games won't even use 256MB so it's not much of an issue.

 

BIOS has nothing for Hypermemory from what I saw. I'd love to disable it personally.

 

1. Please double check your configuration. There shouldn't be anywhere near $200 price difference if they are indeed identical. If that much of a price difference remains, please email me at [email protected] with your configuration so I can see what the difference is, and possibly make an adjustment.

2. Please note that with GenTech there is no return policy that you have to agree to, and then if you can convince them to accept a return there is a 15% restocking fee.

3. How long do you expect to keep your laptop? I am asking becuase you are referring to our 3 year warranty as being extra long, and most people keep their laptops that long so I am just curious...

 

I just ordered the S96J from GentechPC with this configuration


CPU: Intel® Yonah Core-Duo T2400 1.83GHz 2M 667 FSB
RAM: Corsair 1GB DDR-2 667 SODIMM (1X1024)
HD: Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 100GB 7200rpm S-ATA
Internal Wireless Card: Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 Tri-mode 802.11a/b/g
Display: 15.4" WXGA 1280 x 800 Color Shine (Glare)
VGA: ATI Mobility X1600 256MB PCI Express
Optical Drive: 8 x DVD-RW Dual Layer Super Multi
Camera: Built-in Camera

Ken was very quick in responding to my pms and was very friendly, I would recommend them to people who are interested in purchasing this laptop.

Now I just have to anxiously wait for its arrival

 

Congrats!

Join the club of impatiently waiting members!

Or well - me at least!

 

guys....they don't actually take away 256 if you aren't using it. they just list it as such. it will only take the additional 256 if it is needed while playing a game or doing some 3d stuff. you still have your full amount of memory if you aren't using more than 256 vram.

 

Gah, I want my laptoppy. lol I'm so impatient sometimes.

And yay for oat bran pretzels, banana, figs, and chocolate soymilk for dinner lol </random>

 

You were right... the $200 was because of the WXGA+... the price is not nearly as high as I thought it was. Both are comparable.

 

Gah! be happy that you have yours ordered... I have to wait like a month... all I get to do is read all of this excitement and feel like poo because I can't even order mine yet.

 

me two*, only i onll have to wait too weeks

 

Ahhhh another one to rub it in. I don't know why I torture myself by reading this stuff.

 

How quick is gentech shipping them out. because I ordered mine on sunday and I want to bring it to the beach with me on saturday.

and school got out today.

 

another one waiting here to order their z96j! argh!! all this excitment : (