S96J Owners Lounge!!!

u got exact same configuration as mine and yea that is a good idea.
- type in notebook hardware control in google and it is the first site.
- haven't tried but i remember reading somewhere on this forum that asus' dvd program sucks so that might be it, or it is the s96's bad speakers.
- yea search on the cd and install setup.bat and not setup2k or something and it works.

 

Whoo hoo!

Installed the Omega drivers and my 3649 in 3DMark06 jumped to 3917 (first try, not averaged)
Is that going to be a really noticeable difference in games?

Krista
S96J, 1.83, X1600 (256), 1gig (667 - 1dimm), 100g HD (5400rpm).

 

Good idea. Go ahead and start the thread

 

So, I think I have learned a few lessons for my purchase of my S96J. I still have not received it from the company that I bought it from, which has been a major source of angst for me for the last two weeks. I have heard all kinds of horror stories about buying things online. Of course I had one of those ‘it will never happen to me as I am too smart to buy from a bad company’ mindsets. It happens when you are arrogant from years of buying online and not having a single problem.

I bought my laptop from Adamant Computers [ www.adamant.com] in Cleveland Ohio by phone as I needed a bigger hard drive then what they had on their website. The guy on the phone got right to business, it took only a few minutes and it was ordered. All was good. It was supposed to ship Monday. I called on Tuesday as to the tracking number and I was told that it would ship today, Thursday. Again I call Wednesday to see if everything is kosher and what was I told by customer support, “Mr. Bragg, it will ship tomorrow, please stop calling’ quickly followed by the sound of a phone hanging up on me. Not kosher at all. I was a little bit pissed off. Just a little bit.

So I called again today. What was I told today; my credit card did not go through and that they had called on Friday the 23rd. Now maybe you are as confused I was. I called twice this week and there was no problems what so ever. Now all of sudden my credit card is not going through, I have to wonder what the hell is going on. He asks if I want to cancel and I answered no for some reason. So I sit in stunned confusion for a couple minutes then decide to call my credit card company to see if I had been charged. Nope. See if they have reserved the money. Nope. At this point I become very, very angry as I think anyone would be at this farce. I decide that I am going to cancel the order.

But before I cancel the order I need to shop around to see if I can get the ASUS S96J because there have been shortages of them as they are so popular and it is the computer that I want. I lurked in this forum for awhile. The one consistent place that gets good customer reviews was PowerNotebooks.com. Before I was going to buy from them I was going to call and see what kind of support that I will get. To my surprise I get amazing support. I talk to Donald Stratton for at least 30 minutes about my various options of notebooks I can get. The real issue is that I am in the Navy and being re-stationed from Naval Base Kitsap to Station and I am leaving late July 7th to fly down. I need my laptop before that point for various reasons. What was wonderful is that he understood my issues and worked within his powers to get what I needed. The S96J is in back order and would not get to me in time. Thus he talked me into a Crown P. I told him about my situation with Adamant and that I was ready to cancel that order. He suggested that I call my credit card company block Adamant from making a charge and tell them that they would be getting a charge from PowerNotebooks.com. He made me want to buy from them. So I decided to heed his advice.

I call up my credit card company and what do I find a charge from Adamant Computers for the amount the laptop was for. In the time that I had got off the phone with Adamant, talked to Donald and my credit card company I had been charged. For a second time today I was stunned. I quickly call Adamant to my displeasure everything regarding my credit card had been ‘fixed’ and it was being shipped tomorrow. The store owner for Adamant was going to call me later to apologize and tell me my tracking number. I recalled my credit card company to see if I wasn’t dreaming to my utter displeasure it was.

Argh… I really don’t want to give them my money at all because of the crappy treatment that I received throughout the deal.

So what did I learn;

1. Do more then a little research about the companies that you are buying from. It had a ResellerRatings.com rate of 5.77 which is piss poor. I fell into the trap of really good product at a really good cost without doing the background information that is required to make sure you actually get that product in that time.

2. Shop around a little more as it never hurts. Another day and I would have purchased from PowerNotebooks.com.

I am mad at myself more then anything else as it is totally my fault for making this decision. At the same time one has to wonder how anyone can run a business when you deal with customers in such a way along with the delays and lack of communication. It just does not seem like a smart business plan for success.

I will be buying my next notebook from Donald after what the support he gave me. I am a little disappointed that my money can not go to such a well run business. I still do not know if I will have a laptop as Adamant has just a week to get me my laptop and I have no trust with them after two weeks. But at this point it would be even more of a hassle to try to cancel as Adamant made more then clear to me.

I will keep you guys updated with what happens.

The Chaos Project

 

Don't let Adamant push you around.

You can call them again and insist that they cancel your order and immediately refund your credit card. Tell them you will simply refuse the package if they ship it, and will do a "charge back" on your credit card. They will understand that kind of language.

Then, call your credit card company back and tell them that you have canceled your order but the company has threatened that they will ship it anyway. Ask for the fraud department if whoever you talk to doesn't stop the charge immediately.

Sheesh... I hate crooks in this business

 

They are going to ship it no matter if I try anc cancel the order, they made that clear to both me and my father who had a few words with support. My credit card company already payed them as well and from my understanding that takes more paperwork for me that I really don't have the time to deal with. I will call tomorrow and see what I can do, but Adamant is closed right now.

I am tempted Donald to place an order with you guys in the next few moments. I will talk to my dad and see if I can put it on his credit card as to not ruin my credit.

Yeah, no one who reads this should ever buy from Adamant. EVER!

The Chaos Project

 

This is awful. It is more than just what is happening now, you have to rely on these people for the rest of your warranty period. If you think things are bad now, they could get a lot worse.

Now, I don't mean to stick my nose in here and bash another reseller, but any legitimate reseller will cancel an order when asked. To have them insist on shipping tomorrow is terrible.

You can still refuse the shipment and do a charge back on your credit card. I know it is a hassle, but it will be a lot easier than having to deal with Adamant for support and warranty issues should you have any.

 

They called you and told you there was a problem with your credit card. You assumed, at that point, that the order would not go through. I would tell your credit card company this entire story, tell them to reverse charges, and then refuse the shipment, pure and simple. If Adamant is refusing to reverse charges, your credit card will take care of it for you.

Adamant had a good price, but I had done some research... decided not to buy there. I hope they put everything together properly for you so you don't have to deal with their support too.

There's no real paperwork involved, as far as I know. You have the right to cancel the order, and your credit card company will back you up.

Krista

 

Trust me, if I have any issues I will just buy a new one from you guys and hand off that baby to a friend. I will upgrade when the Core 2 Duo's come out.

Everyone other then my dad thinks that I should cancel. He says 'give them a chance' which just angers me beyond belief from what I have gone through. I think he doesn't want to endanger his perfect credit buy dealing with them, which I can understand.

Krista,

I called them today and they said this. This was after them telling me yesterday and Tuesday that the notebook would ship today. They have never tried to communicate with me at all.

The Chaos Project

 

Guys, may i know S96J is using gddr2 or gddr3 vram?

 

Who cares? Do you really think it matters?

Anyway...it is GDDR2

 

GDDR3 is slightly faster, isnt it?

 

Received my S96J yesterday and quickly put it together (Quick warning to anyone ordering from MWave, I did not receive extra screws to hold down the optical drive, just the brackets).

My configuration ended up being:
2.0ghz Core Duo
2gb Corsair DDR2-667
80gb Seagate Momentus 7200.1

My first impression was: Wow, it's huge! My previous laptop was an old 14" IBM Thinkpad. After installing Windows, along with NHC I was surprised at how hot it runs, but I guess that's not a surprise, as even the 1.83ghz Core Duos run hot. Running Super Pi pushes the CPU up towards the mid-60s, but I decided to stress it a bit more and fired up 2 instances of Prime95 (One for each core), and voila, temps went up to 75c causing the fan to hit the max mode, and it happily kept itself at that temparature. Coming from an A64 Venice desktop the temperatures feel a tad high, but I doubt there's much I can do about it, they'll hopefully drop a bit in a few days after the AS5 has settled in. Really wish there was some way of controlling at what temperatures the fan kicks in, as I'd prefer it to hit max mode around 60 or so. Ahwell, at least the laptop will keep me warm in the winter.

Had no problems whatsoever getting the camera to work either, just ran setup.bat in the driver package I downloaded from Intel's website.

 

Is it just me or does Asus not have a functional website?

 

They do, you just won't find anything about the S96J on it, and probably never will due to it being a joint with Intel.

 

Were the brackets already attached for you? I don't think I got brackets... I slid mine in and screwed it in and it was fine, but... unless the bracket is attached I didn't get them

I was two screws short, now I know why

Krista

 

I don't think it would affect the credit rating, especially if you explain what happened. I suspect you'll end up being your own tech support.

Krista

 

They have stuff on the Z96J though.

Krista

 

Theoretically faster maybe, but not so that you could see any difference.

If I gave you two laptops for a week, one with GDDR3 and one with GDDR2, you wouldn't be able to tell me which was which at the end of the week.

The lesson here is to not get caught up in all the marketing hype, and pay attention to what really makes a difference.

 

Yep, that's the issue I had. Brackets were attached, but no extra screws.

Yep, as the Z96J is 100% their own creation, and not a VBI notebook.

 

What did it look like with the brackets attached? Something like the hard drive bracket? I've a feeling mine just slid in without the brackets and I screwed it in.

I've called Mwave.

Krista

 

Two small pieces of metal screwed onto the drive, without them there is no way to screw the drive tight. Pretty much just vertical brackets.

 

Ah, I'm betting mine came with them attached then. I was thinking of something like what came with the HD. I'll pull it out and double check, but I slid it in, screwed it in (using one screw that was supposed to go in the bottom of the case and.. hmm, one from the HD, maybe.) and it seemed nice and snug and isn't making any nasty noises.

Krista

 

Maybe I cant notice the difference with my naked eye. IMO, I think it will at least affect the 3dmark score and that tells us that which is better. Correct me if I was wrong. Maybe this is a factor that cause S96J doesnt get 4k+ in 3dmark05 which the Acer 8204 or Asus W3J does.

Everyone is hoping the better things, right?

Some threads give opinions that X1600 with GDDR3 performs better.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=58762
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=59649

A forumer said that there is big difference between GDDR2 and GDDR3, can u prove that he was wrong?

 

"Maybe I cant notice the difference with my naked eye."

If you can't notice it with your naked eye...what difference does it make? You made the point right there.

Synthetic benchmarks are not only over rated, and don't represent real world use, but they are meaningless if YOU can't tell the difference...right?

Get a life. Who is a "forumer"? Someone who has a false name and no credentials.

The only thing that matters is can YOU SEE a difference...now, from your own writing..."Maybe I cant notice the difference with my naked eye."

If you can't...what difference does it make...

Did you miss this sentence: "The lesson here is to not get caught up in all the marketing hype, and pay attention to what really makes a difference.

Get a life.

 

You sound aggressive. Anyway, nice lesson and thx.

 

Sorry, I don't mean to sound aggressive but when a n00b asks me to "prove" it, well, I just say it like it is.

I break it down into real world reality and try to protect people from getting caught up in the "testosterone" trap of marketing hype.

I apologize if I offended you, I was only trying to be helpful.

 

Many if not most of the people on these forums aren't experts. They're just people trying to find help making the best educated decision on which notebook they want to spend their hard earned money on. I can't believe you called him a "noob" and told him to "get a life" just because he didn't accept your lousy answer. Well he shouldn't. To him, you've got no more credibility than any other forumer until you prove otherwise.

For the record, according to the ATI website, the X1600 can be outfitted with DDR2 or GDDR3. GDDR3 is NOT DDR3. GDDR3 IS a leap ahead of DDR2. At identical clocks, it should nudge ahead of DDR2, but, more importantly, when it comes to OCing, it should offer more headroom and run cooler.

Is this important? Probably not. But it's something to consider if you think a few frames per second might make a difference to you someday.

lxllsr, to avoid getting too off topic, if you want some links to some more information on the technical differences between the two memory type, send me a PM.

 

Hardware Information
Installed memory 256 Mb
Memory Type GDDR3
Memory Width 128 bit
Active Rendering Pipelines 4

That's what Ati Tray Tools' System Information tells me on my 2 days old S96J.

 

Well, now I really do feel dumb.

All this fuss and it was GDDR3 all the time. My apologies to all.

 

That's cool.

Btw, according to Chaz in this tread,
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=59649
"ATI Tray Tools isn't accurate at all." How do u think?

Hoping ATI Tray Tools accurate for S96J.

 

My S96J comes in next week, I will write a review and post my findings

 

Interesting, had no idea ATI Tray Tools was inaccurate. I installed the latest beta of ATI Tool, and under hardware info it says DDR2, so I guess that is the verdict, eh.

 

I've had my S96J for a few days now, and am loving it as an upgrde for my "suddenly dead" M6Ne. Coming from a 1.3GHz Banias with a Mobility 9700, this fells pretty sweet, and the aesthetics are much beter. I just hope the LCD pivots don;t wear out as fast as on the M6Ne.

Anyway, I've notied that the framerates coming from the BisonCam are absolutelty terrible, to the point of being very frustrating. When I fire it through Control Panel, I get maybe 5 FPS, and the same thing in DScaler. All the moevemts are very blurry and audio is not sycnehd with video.

Is this just one sh*t webcam, or is something wrong?

Thx,
Aaron

 

I can't believe how rude some of the retailers are on this forum. The guy from ProPortables has made some pretty rude and insulting posts as well. I can't believe you guys would treat possible customers this way, and though I've heard nothing but good things about powernotebooks, this would make me not want to buy from you.

 

I was wondering about this as well, but reading the specs just mentions it as a 1.3mpixel cmos camera. So maybe it's not meant to be a webcam.

 

Considering the number of noobs that come to this site everyday, these guys are doing a prety good job. The number of people they have helped > the number of people they called a 'noob' and 'get a life'. Everyone has their bad days, give them a break.

 

this seems to be my take with ddr2 and ddr3 vram. the ddr2 versions come slower with stock clocks. i believe the s96j with stock clock is around 3500-3600, while the w3j with ddr3 (i think) is around 3800-3900. however, i believe s96j get up to 3900s with omega drivers, and can probably be oc'ed past 4000. however, the w3j can get up around the 4500s and even up to 5000 for a few experienced overclockers. so the ddr2 is slower to begin with, and doesn't oc as high. however, the question then becomes, how much of a difference does a few hundred 3dmark scores make?

 

Did you install your OS and drivers, or did your dealer do it?

In any event, here is the proper way to resolve your issue:

1. Perform a clean installation of Windows XP SP2.
   
2. Install all current S96J drivers in order from top to bottom.
   
3. Browse to the Camera Folder on the S96J driver CD.
   
4. Browse to the BISON folder.
   
5. Run "setup.bat" to install webcam driver, and then reboot the machine.

Do not run the "2ksetup.exe" file that is in the same folder where you found the "setup.bat" file.

If you have already attempted to install the D-Max camera driver, Windows XP SP2 must be reinstalled.

 

lol, I think we proved the S96J takes GDDR3 aswell.

 

I installed the OS (XP SP2) and the dirvers myself. I don't remeber the exact order, but the webcam was last. I tried using the updated package off the Intel drivers page, and got the "grey" screen. I then ran the setup.bat off the driver CD, and then reinstalled the updated drivers.

I mean, the camera works ok in that it is recognized by windows, grabs video, etc. It's just that the video is NOT fluid, or even 15fps, like many cheap webcams.

All I want to know is whether others have the same experience or not.

Thanks,
A

 

What program are you using to capture video?

 

Hmmm, I think the jury may still be out.

 

hmmm i wonder which run of s96j's the people with different readings are having, im using the second shipment (the one that arrived ont he 19th) and am showing gddr3. for reference stock i hit 1933 on 3dmark06 and with omegas about 2033

 

what program are you using to read the score?

 

ati tray tool to detect gddr3, and 3dmark06 basic for the score

 

well, that is part of the dispute. people are saying that ati tray tools inaccurately records the information. you should check out ati tool to see what it says.

 

Our only S96J is currently at a tech show, so we can't test for the video memory, but anyone that has one can download EVEREST Home Edition which is freeware system information. Hopefully it will be accurate and the results can be reported here.

 

ummmm i cant find anything in everest that says what memory it is, one part says 512(which means its counting hypermemory) but i havent seen anyplace with the type. the gpu section is staying grey like it cant find the info

 

EVEREST has no valuable information at all for the S96J; the entire GPU information part is blank, so all you have is some simple driver information. There is however a notification about the program not supporting the chipset/etc. (Which I guess kinda shows, as it says my CPU is an engineering sample)