U81A-RX05 Owner's Lounge

A couple days ago I noticed this model had dropped $40 in price on the Best Buy website so I went out to my local store and they had 14 of them on the shelf and they were on clearance for $575! Sooooo, I bit the bullet and bought one. I'd been hovering around this laptop for weeks waiting for the price to drop. Here's the link:
EDIT: Link no longer works -- guess BB sold out.

I've owned around 18 or 20 laptops in the last 10 years (many of them bought and sold via Craigslist). Of the 10 or so NEW laptops I've bought, this one is the best deal by far.

Pros:
- Price to Performance ratio
- Build quality is excellent (it's an Asus!)
- Resolution to screen size (1366x768) 16:9 aspect ratio, 14.1" screen
- Core 2 Duo T6500 processor 2.1 GHz
- 4GB 800 MHz RAM, dual-channel, CAS timings: 4-4-4-12
- 320 GB HDD & DVD -/+RW DL
- HDMI port and all the usual other ports
- Intel integrated 4500MHD graphics chipset
- Gigabit LAN and "N" Wi-Fi
- Multi-touch touchpad (yes, it is, you only have to enable the features)
- Good sound with the SRS software
- Runs COOL and QUIET
- Rated for 7 hours battery life!
- Excellent chiclet-style keyboard
- Sleek, minimalist styling (looks like a Macbook Pro but SO much cheaper)

Cons:
- I haven't found any, so far. There's a tiny bit of "screen-door effect" on the screen, but it's not noticeable unless you really look for it. You can always pay $200 more and get the great Sony display, but it's really not worth the extra money... this screen is fine. Glossy, but not TOO glossy.

I'm running Windows 7 (64-bit) on it and all drivers and utilities work fine. I installed them from the included DVD by running the setup.exe in Vista compatibility mode. All the hotkeys and features work fine except for ExpressGate. Asus may have a Windows 7 update for that soon, but that's not something I would use anyway.

I'd like to hear from other owners of this model. I think it will be discontinued soon since as of today it's listed as an "outlet" item (whatever that means). They still have about 15 of them in my local BB store.

Share your joys and sorrows with your U81A and post questions here.

 

You've listed mainly specs but how do you find it performs with the programs you use?
Also you should run 3dmark06 demo to see how it compares.
Might i add that SRS software is the bomb diggity

 

is there another version of this laptop that we might be able to read reviews on? i'm highly considering this laptop considering the price to performance ratio. it's main competitors it seems are the 14z and the dv4, both of which have way worse battery life.

 

question for other owners. did you find that the asus update utility worked? it said no updates were required but when i went to the asus site there were newer drivers available. also anyone find any issues with the network speed? mine is super slow on the download.

 

With 64-bit Win7 installed it is very fast for a laptop. The first thing I did is get rid of Vista!

No, I'm not going to run any benchmarks on it.... I'm just not that anal that I have to compare it with other laptops. It's an Asus, that's all I need to know since I've had 2 other Asus laptops previously. For the money, I'm more than satisfied with its performance, I'm thrilled!

And yes, the SRS sound software is great, especially for music and movies.

TO: substance12
Same here. The update utility doesn't seem to work for this model. Probably because it's a Best Buy model or because they haven't updated their site for this model yet. It doesn't matter to me, Windows 7 installed all the drivers I needed except for the hotkeys and a couple other minor ones that aren't really necessary. Before you decide that the drivers on the Asus site are newer, look at the manufacture date of your laptop. Mine was made in June and I don't see any drivers newer than that on the listing for 64-bit Vista drivers for the U81a.

 

is there a built in microphone?

 

ASUS Live Update has never ever worked on any ASUS laptop that I know of. Remove it please and update manually.

99% likelihood that there is (virtually all laptops come with one). But can't say for sure of course.

 

Yes there is a built in mike, and it seems to work fine. Forget gaming on this, except mildly. 3DMark06 is a slide show, even 3DMark03 is choppy. 3DMark01 SE runs great though. WoW all lowest details in the 10day trial seems to yield me between 30-50 FPS running around.

Encoded HD works wonderfully, Even flash video HD full screen is easily doable. Office apps, visual studio express and other general apps work great. The T6500 and 4 gigs of ram are more than enough.

Draftn here connects to the router at 270 Mbps, Multiple internet tabs and threads are a non issue and just do not seem to bog this machine down. It is just a pleasure to use and not get a ton of lag.

PCMark05 gave me 3985, Sisandra lite showed 19.34 Gips, 3dMark01 SE is 6300-6500, PassMark 803 over all cpu was at 1715. Synthetic's other than 3D are just great.

So if you are just a light gamer with older games this is fine. For other general use it is wonderfull to just plain awesome.

 

FWIW, the network card did not play nicely with my asus 520 router with tomato firmware on it. i replaced it with ddwrt and it would only work when afterburner was disabled. it took me forever to figure that out.

it's a pretty bad finger print magnet as well as oil magnet. anyone have remedies for that?

 

Windows 7 has the Atheros AR8131 ethernet driver but most Linux distros do not. One that does is Ubuntu's 9.10 Alpha 6 (Karmic Koala) which will be released final on Oct. 29th. For Windows 7 (64-bit, RTM), I ran the driver/utility setup program in Vista compatibility mode and it worked fine. I have all hotkeys and functions.

As for fingerprints... to me, that's just a non-issue. Carry a clean, soft, well-worn washcloth and wipe it every now and then. I wouldn't change the design at all, it looks great to me (after I took off those damn palmrest stickers).

It seems Best Buy has yanked this model from its website. Guess they sold out and it's now a discontinued model. We're on our own, but I don't anticipate any problems. I've had mine 3 weeks now and using it daily -- so far, no issues or problems. I'm very glad I went for the model with the stronger processor, it really does make a big difference.

 

Yep, we are on our own now. Other than getting this specific model used you are about out of luck. There may be a few straglers in stores though.

I just wipe the system once in the morning with a slightly damp paper towel, dampened with mild amonia water, and it is ready for another day of finger print gathering......

The T6500 is quite a capable CPU. Relatively strong and a great multithreader even with just 2 meg L2. The 4500MHD runs full screen Flash 720P HD wonderfully. this link below plays full screen with SRS enabled never going above 20% CPU utilization.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPcimeiqLE

 

how do you remove the asus live update program from start up? i couldn't find ALU.exe in msconfig.

 

just uninstall it, that is what I've done.......

Edit; I am wondering if we should contact the mod though and have this changed in title to an official owners lounge..........

 

asus updated their drivers to windows 7. Most of the essential drivers however.

 

I have had this now for 10 days and here is what I've found.........

While this is a more than capable Vista machine it like all others just begs for Windows 7. I went with the RC 64 Bit and have not had an OS specific issue yet. My only driver issue, as with my other Win7 machines is my networked HP printer. Come on HP, get with the program here.

When you go to Asus's support site and let it auto detect your model, it comes back as the U-80a, standard model. So far all of these drivers have worked for me and this model has the Windows 7 drivers available.

Bricking warning here. I personally have updated to the 208 Bios available to the U-80a. Winflash gave the OK to model/bios version so I took the plunge. This is only for the brave of heart and foolish of mind, do so only at your own risk........

Windows 7 Audio drivers Embeds the SRS control to the Speaker output properties. No more single icon access. The Stereo Mix though is still there for those interested.

Speaker output is quite nice for a laptop once the sound has been tweaked. At 50% volume it is quite loud and clear. Bass will always be an issue for this small a speaker without a Sub. Be sure to enable the Loudness Equalization too, this greatly enhances the volume levels and let SRS enhance the rest.

Forget a turbo mode, it just isn't there. I've tried Power4Gear Hybrid and Extreem versions to no avail. Unless you are willing to outside control the CPU, the Bios/ACPI seem to always use speed stepping. This however, as pointed out, is just either 1.2 to 2.1 GHz and visa versa. Unlike my norm I have to give up my controling ways but the compromise here does seem to work well.

The 320Gb Drive is more than adaquate. I bought into the Hype and put in a Seagate 7200.4 500GB. Not worth the money IMHO, very slow access times kills this drive. Also expect to get, download, QuietHDD and turn the APM off. Come on WD, where is the 500GB black drive..........

Memory seems to be relaxed timed 6-6-6-24 1T. Not too bad but I had 5-5-5-18 1T in another laptop not being used so the exchange was made. It looks like 8GB ram won't be an issue here but 4GB is more than adaquate for most. You are looking at $300 plus there or say HyperX 4-4-4-8 1T at about $240 for 4 GB.

The T6500 CPU is just awesome. Lots of power and does not seem to get bogged down. I haven't looked into what it takes to get the CPU out to replace it but it appeares we could even get to 1066 FSB. Expect to at least have to upgrade the ram too. You can get PC2 8500 Sodimm's though so this is theoretcially possible. Again IMHO there is no real need to go further than the T6500 but it looks like you can.

Fan noise is relatively low. You can hear it running but no biggie at least for me. For what this is it runs fairly cool. Temps even with the Seagate drive all hover in the low 40's C.

The battery gives a good 6 plus hours of web/office use but gaming or video can quickly bring you too 2-3 hours of usage time. Personally I can't wait till someone comes out with an extended battery. I'd be more than happy with extra size and weight of a 9 cell and 10 plus hours of regular use.

The 5100 wireless conections are great. Be sure to go to the wireless properties and turn on thoughput enhancements and set Draftn for 2.4 and 5.2 at auto. With a Trendnet Draftn router I regularly get 270 Mbps connection speed.

Lets all add as we can to the thread so that we can learn from each other and make this awesome machine that much more awesome......

 

I don't know why you call the 4500MHD crappy in your sig? it isn't a gaming IGP but anyone buying it should know that. For what it is supposed to do, Aero and HD, it does it quite well and at fairly low power levels too.....

 

I agree, the 4500MHD is perfectly adequate for what this machine is intended for. Remember, it's NOT a gaming machine (you would pay a LOT more for a gamer).

Most of the streaming video on the web, including High-Def, is Flash. Flash video is, at this time, 100% CPU dependent -- it will NOT use your graphics card/chipset. That's why, for me, the 4500MHD is just fine. I'm not a big gamer, I run a few older games and they run just fine. At some point in the future, Flash is supposed to be re-designed to take advantage of GPU.

TANWare: Yes, I'll contact a mod and see if I can get this thread renamed to Owner's Lounge. I thought about that just as soon as I created it but didn't know I could get it renamed.
Edit: Done.

As for HDD: I put in a Western Digital 500GB, 5400rpm drive (WD does not yet offer a 7200rpm model at 500GB) and my performance points in Windows 7 WEI went up a couple points for the HDD. I bought this drive because it was rated overall best 500GB by professional testers:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17010

My stock RAM timings are 6-6-6-18. I'm tempted to try and tweak the FSB and CPU freq and buy faster RAM, but for right now I'm happy with it as it is. I doubt I'll do much tweaking or modding while it's under warranty. I don't think replacing the hard drive affects the warranty. It didn't in my previous Asus model (1000HE), which, BTW, is an excellent netbook if you don't mind the weak Atom processor.

 

I already have the Backlit keyboard on order. Supposedly we can get it lit 100% of the time, I am going to see if we can get some more control of it.

I tend to open all my computer box's with a screwdiver in hand or very near by. I also love to explore all my possabilities for expansion, even if I never go there.

It is weird though, where my P-7805u you could feel some CPU lag with a P8400 this you really don't feel the multithread lag even though less L2 and slower FSB. I had to go with a P9600 for that velvety smooth feel but this has it out of the box.

As I stated before, Come on WD we need a 500GB black now! it has been long enough already...........

 

lol yeah true. i dunno what i was thinking when i wrote that.

 

do you also disable the touch pad while using the mouse? I find it WAY better doing that...........

 

Also remember to register your U81a-RX05 for the 1 year accidental warrenty, I just did mine........

http://adw.asus.com/content/adp/default.aspx

 

I have it set to automatically disable the touchpad when I plug in a mouse. There's a checkbox on the touchpad tab of the mouse settings.

 

Yepper, do that with all my touch pads, nice thing is I didn't have to reg hac to enable the option with these drivers..............

I'm bummed, 7 days and no new keyboard yet.........

 

I missed the postman and have to finally pickup the backlit keyboard from th post office tomorow. Soon it will be time to break out the MultiMeter.......

 

Let me know how it works out. Also, I'm curious to know if there's a way to get the light sensor to work on this model. The little sensor is there, near the ExpressGate button, but I don't think it's hooked up or maybe they didn't include the electronics for it on the U81a.

 

I'll look but I don't think the circuitry is there just the opening in the case. Since the opening is right above the USB port there it is probably, on the U80v's, part of or attached to that port.

 

Never got to the Post Office, went to the DR. for a to week lingering congestion issue and ended up in the E.R. I've escaped, with multiple scripts, but to late for keyboard retrieval.
I'll break out the 40D tomorow and see about getting at lease some disassembly pics for you guys.......

 

Ok, got the keyboard and some picks but it looks like there is supposed to be a header block like that for the keyboard cable...........

I've posted some pic's in the other thread, no backlight yet though............

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=404994&page=3

 

I blew it with the new keyboard, you need four hands for it and I got too close to the keyboard cable with the iron..........

 

Sorry to hear that, TAN. Better luck next time.

I'm wondering if this model will support 8GB of RAM. I can't find max RAM specs anywhere. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

 

supposedly it will. I saw it somewhere and also if you go to SiSandra etc it states to 8 gig's. Unless you go SSD though I don't think you'd see much of an improvement unless you are stretching the ram now.

If you are hitting that wall you would definately know. Once you start hitting the swap file it slows everything to a crawl.........

 

I am really getting that hardware upgrade itch, not sure where to go, the choices are as follows for about $300 or so;

1.) 4 Gig Kingston cas4 memory
2.) 8 Gig Cas5 memory, I'm at 4 gig cas5 now.
3.) 128 GB higher end SSD

I know the optimum upgrade for about 900-1000 would be the 8 Gig ram and turn off the swap file with 256GB high end SSD but my account bank account would really hate me at that point.

 

Got my second keyboard and did the mod. as expected the four existing connections did nothing if connected properly to the keyboard power cable. So as in the other mod I just provided the power connections. I now have a lit keyboard.

Have to get out the 40D and provide a picture of the soldered power connections........

 

Good job. Nice to know that it can be done.

 

It works great, I have already used it in a totaly dark room and it works extreemly well. Gives off a fair amount of external/ambient light so if you are trying to hide you are a dead man.......

Will follow with some pics in a bit. I put in some clear tape for testing and pics, I'll follow with proper black electrical tape once I've got my pic's and am ready to button it all down.

I was going to get an AS1810T as I love the smaller form factor but now using this I can live with the size but don't think I can give up the keyboard. I can use this in alot of places I can't use other laptops, you don't realize how many dark places you can use it until all of a sudden you can. Sitting on the couch at night with the lights dimmed, not having to turn on every light in the room and/or trying to find that sweet spot. Not having to shuffle the system or yourself around again trying to find that just right situation. I would imagine in mass transit this would be ideal as well.

If you can't tell I think this should be an option on EVERY laptop period! Once you have it you will never want to give it up............

Edit; Not the greatest but a short video of it installed. I recorded it on a HD camera but the video was 205 megs, so converted to avi and now under 23 megs..........


Video

 

For those interested Asus has a new bios for the U80-a Best Buy version. They do not seem to have updated the U81-a page at all and our Win 7 upgrade page list this as a U80-a as well. The bios is now up to v210 and stops the Bluetooth from showing up on FN+F2 when not installed. There are other versions there too..........

 

I installed the 209 BIOS but had some problems. Like, the Wi-Fi light stayed on all the time, even when showing as off in mobility center and the OSD. So I flashed it back to 205 and problem was fixed. Let us know if you have any probs with the 210 BIOS.

 

In v210 when I turn off the WiFi with FN+F2 the LED up front goes out......

 

I sold my U81A today. Now I'm looking to buy another laptop that has discrete graphics. Any recommendations? I have about $1500 to spend. Previous laptops I've owned that had discrete graphics would get too hot and often become unstable as a result. Some manufacturer must have solved this problem by now.

 

Personally I like my Gateway P7805u but now there are the P79xx-u's The Gateway systems have a seperate fan for the CPU and GPU so cooling is nt a real issue. If I had to only have one I'd have the Gaeway but since I can have more I'll keep this combo for now. Since I'm not a gamer I really have only used the Gateway a few times since purchasing the U81a........

 

I was curious so I installed Battery Bar on the computer. With the backlit keyboard in entertainment mode at 40% screen I see under 11.0 Mhw draw. Not too shabby I guess.

 

Got my Win7 ugrade disc from Asus today, Im on the HP version now from the previous RC.

 

Does anyone know the difference between the U81A-RX05 sold from Best Buy and the U80A-RSTML05 sold from Staples?

The only difference I see is the U80A now comes with windows 7 64 bit. I just found the U81A still being sold on best buy's site through their outlet center.

Can any U81A owners tell me what their network card is?

 

Intel 5100AGN......... I see no real difference other than the T6600 CPU, so a slightly faster CPU.........

 

sometimes my wallpaper switches back to the asus one. anyone know why that happens?

 

Vista or Windows 7? I do know with P4G in Win7 in battery saver it loads a different wallpaper than the one being used.

 

it's on vista. if it's related to power settings then perhaps i can find somewhere that it disables that user wallpaper. but the wallpaper changes when the laptop is plugged in.

 

I never used Vista on mine. I have always had Windows 7, first the release canidate now the upgrade to Home Premium. Now does it just change when you first power on or while using it? I do know Vista and Windows 7 will have issues if you try using a wallpaper from a removable drive or even sometimes from a directory not in the usual path. Since the Asus wallpaper is the default it would then revert back to it........

 

I just added a Sandisk 8GB Ultra II card and enabled ReadyBoost. The card was the fastest I could find locally and was under $29.00 with tax. With HDTune I see 18.5 MB/s and 1.0 ms seek. I plan to get an Extreme III class 10 as soon as I can.

I formated it to NTFS and dedicated the card to ReadyBoost. There seems to be nothing outstanding about it except it seems to stop Superfetching from using up ram durring a session. Also apps tend to load a bit snappier, nothing breathtaking but it does seem to work.

I think what this notebook really needs is an SSD but this will do for now. I just wish I could with the faster card also get the page file to it as well.......

 

The Staples version of the U80a is on clearance at stores for 549.99 http://www.staples.com/Asus-U80A-RSTML05-Laptop/product_831633?cmArea=SC3:CG71:DP4118:CL161747