V1J/P Owner's Lounge

The false sense people have is with certain people that review the models and say it has one thing when it doesn't.... we both know that's the main problem, but yes having software that does nothing doesn't help either.

The V1's gpu can certainly be pushed further than that of the G1's, and could come close when you're comparing stressing both to the limit... the 7700 would still win out but not by much. Out of the box the business class dedicated graphics models that Asus has put out over the last couple of years have shown handicapped gpu's on the ATI side in an effort to better battery life since most users are looking for more mobility. Not a big deal for someone that knows how to really open up the gpu play with the settings.

 

I had something VERY STRANGE happen to my laptop yesterday. I turned it off before leaving school and when I can home, I turned it on a little bit later. When Windows loaded, the screen was bleached!!! It looked like Gamma, brightness, and contrast where WAY up. And no matter how hard I tried playing with the settings, I could not get things to normal. I had not installed anything that day. I then uninstalled all ATI stuff and then reinstalled the same stuff. Now screen is back to normal. Anyone know what happened?

 

Wow that's definitely interesting, in my opinion the graphic drivers may have gotten corrupted when u shutdown. If this problem continues or comes back, try a restart on the laptop.

 

I started a seperate thread on v1jp battery problems:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=100611

My wear is 10%, after 3 charges and i bought it wednesday.!

 

I got my V1JP and I like the style and build.

However, I do have a few issues/concerns that maybe someone can shed some light on:

1. Keyboard: When typing, the text entry would sometimes jump somewhere else in the text block. It's a pain to type out a paragraph. I tried being very careful when I type to make sure Im not accidently hitting anything, but the problem persists. Just happened as I am typing this.

2. Wacom & photoshop: I'm running Vista Ultimate and when installing the tablet driver, Vista automatically starts up the tablet PC app. Not sure how to turn it off. This isn't really the problem... however, when trying to draw/paint in photoshop, the stylus doesn't work as smoothly as it should, creating a delay and noticeable angles when trying to draw a smooth curve. I don't know what the culprit is here. BTW, the tablet driver was for vista.

3. I've read people comment about how bright the screen is, but it appears a bit dim compared to my 2 year old vaio. This is not a huge concern since I probably would turn it down anyway, but I'm a bit surprised with what I get at max level. Right now in a very dark room, it seems perfect, but with a lamp on (or natural light), it seems a bit faded. Another screen issue... not a 100% sure if this is what's called light leakage, but there seems to be a bit of a ripple coming from the left and right sides of the screen. Out of the 3 issues, this is my least problem.

BTW, anyone running vista manage to get the fingerprint reader to work?

 

With regards to your keyboard issue, when your typing sometimes your thumb or small portion of the palm, may come in contact with the touchpad, thus causing the cursor somewhere else, and this will cause frustration.

So when your typing, turn off the touchpad, by pressing the button at the top of the keyboard.

With regards to your screen, I would suggest taking 2 pictures, one showing your dell and your V1JP side by side at max brightness, and one showing the light leakage.

as for your pen, in Vista, maybe you will need to calibrate the pen, or continuously use it, then it may adjust itself.

 

Thanks milestone... I no longer have my other laptop, but will take a pic of the screen leakage.

I do believe the jumping cursor is due to my fat fingers.

 

Hi all, I've got my V1Jp for 1 week now, and even though is a great notebook, with a great screen, I got 2 issues with it:

1) WLan would stop working after some time, could be 2 minutes or 2 hours, but it will happen at some point. It is not that it disconnects from the AP, it still says connected and I can see it still sends packets through, but no packet is received. The only way to make it work again is using repair in the Windows utility. I have tried many things, installing/reinstalling older/newer Intel drivers, adding removing ATK, WConsole, changing the channel on my AP and various parameters on the Intel driver, with no success, sooner or later Wlan would block. My other two laptops (not Asus) have absolutely no problem with the wireless, so this seems to be a problem with this specific notebook. Has anybody experienced somehing like this? Is it posible my wlan card is faulty?

2) I use the laptop for work, and yesterday when I got to the office and tried to boot, the screen was completely garbled, a bit like when a video screen loses sync, but not quite (but it was even worst, maybe something like pevelg has reported?). This happened right from the Asus screen that appears just when you turn it on. I plugged an external monitor, and that worked perfect, I cloned the LCD display on this monitor and I could do my work for the rest of the day, and kept the notebook out of the way with the lid closed. Just when I was about to leave, I tried the notebook screen again and it worked perfect. I have the idea that this might be a thermal fault, since I was carrying the notebook in my backpack and it was a cold day (2c, not that cold, and I was on the street for 40 minutes at most). Does anybody know what is the temperature range for this LCD screen?

Any help or comment will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Alex.

 

I installed the drivers that were provided on the ASUS Site. At least when I downloaded them they were listed as Vista 64bit drivers, but they did contain both the 32bit and 64bit drivers for Vista.

After installing it started working. I use Vista Ultimate, 32bit.

It does say it has some problem communicating with the BIOS when I am setting fingerprints. But I do not use the BIOS authentication at boot time, so for me this is not a big problem. Computer login and unlocking is working fine.

 

1. I am not sure exactly what happened with your WLan, I can suggest that you power cycle your entire network, modem, router, AP, and restart your laptop and hopefully the notebook will hold it's connection to your AP.

2. I don't think your screen was the problem in this case, it may have been a GPU problem that kind of "stalled" or "choked" due to temperature change as you suggested.

Is your screen working fine now? Even if you bring it from the cold outdoors back into indoor warm temperatures?

 

Thanks for your answer.

1) The thing is the laptop does not completely disconnect from the AP, it seems like it's blocked. I will use Ethereal later to see if there actually some traffic coming out of the laptop, but not coming in.

2) But if the problem was the GPU, would still work with the external monitor, but not with the laptop LCD screen?
The screen has been working fine since then, even when today is colder than yesterday (-2c).

Alex.

 

What encryption are you using? WPA? WEP? WPA2? MAC filters?

Doubtful that low temperature would affect it, more like the screen would work more slowly if anything. Maybe something written in the buffer, or maybe something shorting on the output terminals if you put it in your bag causing the card to see weird stuff? Do these connectors have covers on them?

 

Thanks for your answers,

I'm using WPA. I could try WEP, but my other two laptops' wlans work fine with WEP. Today it has happened only once so far, so it must be a good day. But yesterday morning it was driving me crazy, blocking every 2 minutes or so.

What terminals do you mean? When this happened (only once so far), the laptop was not connected to anything.

 

Has the battery wear issues been "solved" (ie. the cause exposed) with the V1Jp?

If so, has anybody managed to get any battery life tests done when the modular battery is used in unison?

I've come down to this and the W3J, and while I prefer the W3J for battery life and size, I prefer the V1Jp for resolution. 1280x768 is just too small for efficient productivity during classes, programming, and work. Hell, even 1440x900 would have been better for the W3J before it went discontinued (did it really? I can't find any Asus-sponsored literature on this). I've spent atleast 18 hours on these forums during the last week, and it's driving me insane

 

Think of it it this way, do you need more portability or do you think you can manage with a 15.4" taking it to school.

From what your stating your best best would be the be the V1JP, its design is very nice, just like the W3J, people will be attracted to it. You get a wonderfull high resolution screen, which will improve productivity, especially with Asus Multiframe being such a neat program.

It does seem you will feel the weight of the V1JP when traveling with it, but it is definitely worth it since it offers such great features.

If you follow MysticGolem's Review on the V1JP, and the new review V1JP and Vista review by lenardg, you will see the battery life is just about 3 hours. The consumption is roughly 22-33 watts per hour. Meaning the battery life of the modular bay battery should get close to 2 hours, maybe 1.5 hours easily and then you can try to stetch it close to 2 hours.

The W3J is EOL, going to be discontinued, so that rumour is basically correct. It still doesn't mean that the W3J ain't a good laptop, it is still one of the stylish, well performing and offers great features for the 14" market.

 

Milestone, here's an image of the weird light leakage I get from the left side of the screen. The right side has a consistent light coming out, but the left side has a bit of a pattern, as shown.

 

Ok dayama I see that light leakage, i don't think it is a lot but, how much does this bother you? Also take a picture of the screen looking square at the laptop, like as if you sat right in front of the laptop. Do you see the light leakage? Or does it only show up when you move the notebook to that particular angle and side?

 

Here's a front shot. It does bother me, but it doesn't hinder my work, which is design related. I'm currently traveling for the next 3 months, but wondered if I did want to do something about it, what are my options (warranty, cost, etc).

EDIT: The light leakage is visible from any angle.

 

hmm, it is very minor, nothing out of the ordinary. In my opinion stick with it. Don't stress over it.

If you feel after a while that the Light Leakage is really hindering the work you do (it shouldn't get worse, plus this amount of light leakage is very minimal) then you may want to call Asus and talk to them about it, otherwise it is quite fine.

 

I could do just fine with a 15.4" laptop. In fact, at BB, I just ran across the MBP (good lord are the specs nice, and the technology implemented is mind blowing). I'm perfectly willing to consider the V1Jp, because I just can't live with the W3J resolution given the work I do. I like the W3J mainly because of it's reported high build quality, specis, and later on, the fact that the batteries aren't plauged like they seem to be with my only other choice. That's what's steering me away from the V1Jp, essentially. I decided I was ok with spending a couple hundred more for the specs, and the battery life seemed to be good enough given those specs, though still less than optimal IMO. Then I read all about these battery issues, and I'm definately not willing to put up with that kinda ignorance on behalf of ASUS. If I'm spending $2500 on a laptop, I would naturally expect that their QC would catch these kinds of problems.

But FYI, I carried a 17" widescreen HP ZD7010CA to and from school almost on a daily basis for 8 months.. 9lbs easy, over 10 with that gigantic power adapter. 6.5lbs isn't much to me.

So, really, it comes down to the fact that the V1Jp has a nagging issue that is putting me off from buying a laptop altogether for a long time, because everything else sacrifices in a way I just find unacceptable -- either battery life, screen resolution, build quality, the list goes on..

Argh, I swear, it's easier to shop for a vehicle.

Side question, where does one purchase this modular battery on MilestonePC? I see the W3J one, but the V1Jp doesn't have that as an extra option.

 

Were the other units tested with WPA? Maybe the router needs a firmware upgrade. Generally, it's something that is in the firmware or drivers if they're not current. I've seen really weird issues which suddenly all went away when using the latest drivers/firmware. I've sometimes seen firmware and driver CDs for routers and wireless cards that are almost two years out of day in some cases unless it's a new/recent product line. Did you test the WiFi on the laptop on someone else's router/AP?

Someone on the forums here also had mentioned something about weak signal strength and that forcing the Intel card properties in Device Manager to full power gave them more bars? Maybe it's dynamically lowering it.

I was thinking down the lines of a DVI port or something to that effect. Sometimes these things sense voltages on startup to see if there's another monitor attached. Maybe a coin or a zipper or something shorted it and made it think it was in some other mode. Was the unit in suspend or hibernation, or did you start it up cold?

PS: -2C is not cold. We're getting -15C here near Montreal.

 

Sorry, the other two laptops have been connecing with WPA with no problems to that AP for almost 2 years now. I've updated the firmware in the router in the last year, but tonight I will check if a new one is available. I have no access to other AP, the office is wired.

The signal is excellent (5 bars) since I'm sitting just 2m away from the AP.
It didn't happen yesterday, so maybe the problem is just going away.

The backpack has a special padded compartment for the notebook, and nothing else is in it, so I don't think that's the case. I'd say it was a cold boot, but I'm not quite sure. It never happened again so far, though.

Yes, I know I have a friend over ther in Montreal and he told me about the low temperatures. You tell my wife though, she thinks +18c is cold.

 

I see, I understand what your stating, your perfectly right to think like that. I am sure many who want to buy a 15.4" high quality, performance, business notebook did think about the V1JP and MBP. There are only 2 things that would immediately strike me as being different about the MBP is the lack of ports and the Mac OS vs Windows, of course you can run Bootcamp and or Parallels.

One thing I can suggest to help you make your decision is to make a table of the pros and cons of both V1JP and MBP and try to rationalize which one would be the best for you. Technically what pros and cons do you prefer over the other.

As for the V1JP's modular bay battery, sorry it is not available yet.

 

hey guys


new v1jp owner here, i just have a few simple questions regarding my new laptop.


1. after i did a few runs of the SuperPi test my result ranged from 1m6s to 1m7s. far from the expected 1m2s. is normal? should i really pay attention to this?

2. is this laptop durable against shocks and bumps? lol ive had it for 2 days and already ive knocked this baby around a few times against the desk etc, i believe there will be more to come as i take this around work and stuff. if this is built anything like my last Thinkpad then i would have nothing to worry about.

3. also another thing is that the screen kinda wobbles and shakes of i type too quickly, not complete resonance, but just small enough to notice.


lastly the vent, oh dear God the vent..... at least it can keep my coffee warm during winter. not that it will directly heat the coffee, the fact that my right hand will be so hot while using the laptop it will probably heat up anything it touches instantaneously

 

Nice to see more owners of the V1JP.

1. Make sure your not running any other CPU intensive programs or applications in the background, your numbers are off by a few seconds, nothing to big of a problem. However I do believe something in the background is causing you to get a slower result.

2. It really depends on how you plan on using it. The overall build quality is very good, you can walk with it open in your hands, drive with it in a car, (don't look at the screen and drive ). It doesn't have shock protection for the hard drive but this doesn't mean it can't handle normal bumps and bangs.

3. Are you typing so fast and hard when the laptop is on your lap? Or is your screen wobbling while on a desk and typing fast?
Just to let you know, most laptops out there will wobble just a little when typing on your lap, especially when going really fast or hard. You can even test this by just lightly tapping the bezel to see how much effort is needed to wobble the screen.

I don't this is something you need to be too concerned about it.

Yah that vent being on the Right side is one of the cons of this laptop. I guess we can all agree it helps during those cold days.

 

cool thanx, that was fast, btw im using vista maybe thats why im off by a few seconds? ill do a 3Dmark06 test soon and will post some results, btw i find the wobble on the laptop abit annoying, it will shake even under the slightest nudge to the screen. well then again maybe its because im coming from a rock solid IBM T43 lol

 

Ah I see, yes Vista can be the culprit in slower results, i'm not sure if you saw this but check both of these reivews. To get a little bit more understanding of the differences of Vista and XP.

V1JP with XP Pro
V1JP with Vista

 

Here's a recent XP vs Vista performance comparison. Vista is slower in just about everything.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/page4.html

 

hey guys, im running into a major problem with my V1JP here, i cant seem to adjust the resolution of games while using this laptop. i mean its a shame to have a t7200 core2duo and a x1700 only to play games at 600x800. i cant seem to adjust the resolution on almost all the games i ran.

does anyone know the solution to this? thanx alot in advance

ps: btw im running vista business


cheers

 

wait a minute, ok i think i have somehow fixed the problem, i dunno how but its done. however the main problem is still here, doesnt matter how far i tweak the resolution or gfx level, the quality of graphics still seem really really bad, this laptop reminds me of my old computer with a geforce4 !!

 

I suggest you have a look at the drivers, re-install the latest ATI Catalyst for Vista drivers.

Was everything working fine in XP Pro? Did you have any gaming problems there?

 

Have had my V1JP for a little over a week now and all is well. It's working out amazingly well. Nothing of note to report in terms of light leakage, unusual battery wear, or dead pixels.

Bought mine from ProPortable and I apparently got their last one that still shipped with XP. Immediately added another 1GB of RAM and swapped out the HD for a 100GB 7200 RPM drive. Was a bit tricky to get into the RAM bay but once I had access all was well and a snap. Also have updated the BIOS from 301 to 304, holding out on 309 for the time being until I'm satisfied that I won't run into driver issues sufficiently to add Vista onto another partition.

Of all the laptops I've owned over the years, I think my overall satisfaction w/ this laptop is the highest of any I've ever owned. (I still use my Dell 700m and 6000 regularly, and often use MacBook Pros and IBM T60s at work). The only gripe I can state is that I love the overall tactile feel of the keyboard, but the layout borders on retarded. I'm not a big fan of the vertical layout of the home/page up/page down/end keys and don't even get me started on the whole Function vs CTRL key issue. I've adjusted some, but I still have the occasional typo multiple times a day. My touch pad buttons are still fairly stiff as well and could use more breaking in.

My only question is if anyone knows of any online shops where I could get a battery for the hot swappable bay and the HD chassis since I'd like to add a slower, large capacity 5400 RPM drive to the machine for media storage.

 

ok my problem regarding the gfx card seems to be gone. turns out that it was just doom 3 that was acting up. all the other games somehow is working perfectly fine at a reasonable resolution and detail level.

 

Just got mine today. Gonna charge up the battery first with the system off to make sure there isn't any chance of ruining the battery. I suppose they were right about glare panels... it does strain the eyes a bit more, but the backlight doesn't have any grossly apparent flicker! Touchpad feels a bit rough, though. Not used to having the fingerprint reader in the middle, so I find when I press the buttons, I have a tendency of hitting the edge where the button isn't... but all in all, so far, so good...

 

i just downloaded 3DMark06 and ran it, the results are really shocking. it is 3 times as less as the v1jp reviewed on this site. have a look here

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=7975151


it says it cannot id my gfx driver, i dont know whats going on and i just hope my v1jp would run normally like everyones elses!!

 

Rekxxor, ok I see your problem. Lets start wit the basics.

If you noticed, Futuremark doesn't recognize your X1700, but it shouldn't matter. The next thing is that your core/memory clocks are too low.

Meaning you need to change P4G to Super Performance and plug in the laptop using the AC adapter. Now run 3DMark06 and see what mark your get. Your goal is to hit ~1800, slightly above that.

The next thing is to upgrade the video card drivers, use the ATI site, Driver heaven or laptopvideo2go.

 

I have a question for the new V1 owners (and vendors). Why did you choose the V1 instead of the G1?

To anyone: Does the 500 points difference in 3DMark06 scores between the V1 and G1 make that much of a difference (V1 ~1800, G1 ~ 2300)?

Note: I am not getting a G1 because it doesn't have an Express Slot.

Thank you for your help!

 

Just to reiterate, look at these reviews, go to the gaming sections, you can compare gaming specifications.

V1JP with XP Pro
V1JP with Vista

G2 Review with Games

There's 2 reviews on the G1, one done by 6times7 and Sloo.

Overall the V1JP vs G1, in my opinion is more about the features and design that appeals to the business user. Features like the multi-bay, docking station, great design, spillproof keyboard and the mini DVI port (HDMI).

 

Hi Everyone,

I've had my V1Jp for about a month now... bought it in the UK and the specs are T7200, 2gb ram, 160gb harddrive Win XP Pro. I love the screen quality and resolution and I've grown to like the touchpad a lot too. Wireless connectivity has been fantastic too - much better than I was expecting. Performance when plugged in is terrific, on battery it's awful, but maybe that's the powersaving settings. When I go from battery back to mains, it stays on battery brightness not plugged in brightness.

I'm not so happy with the case/chassis. I carried my machine in a backpack for the first week and the top of the case got so marked, I've had to change to the bag that came with it. It looks pretty second hand now and I was careful carrying it too, so that's disappointing.

I'm also getting a blue screen of death everyday (sometimes more than one) which has been annoying. First I tried doing a Asus Live update from the 301 bios that it shipped with to 304. The live update programme said it worked fine but when I rebooted it said bad checksum on the first boot and when I loaded the default settings the error went away. When I first got the machine I did a Windows update that found about 60 updates of which about 40 failed to update (could have been Norton, which I uninstalled as it was driving me crazy). On reboot they all worked the next time I tried. I have called Asus UK and they've said I need to reload windows via the F9 on startup but I don't want to do that as I have just activated my Office 2007 and I'm worried, I'll need to activate it again and have hassles with Microsoft (please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm thinking of getting my XP disc and trying a repair. Asus says it's a Windows error not a hardware error. Most times after the BSOD on restart my wireless is switched off.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should try to fix this?

All in all I have mixed feelings about the V1Jp, I want to love it but it's not making it easy so far.

Many thanks
Scottie P

 

Well almost every thing you said is Windows' fault. Don't use Asus Live Update; it's crap. I don't know what kind of backpack you have but I would not carry a laptop in a normal backpack without a sleeve. On battery you can change the profile you run the system at. On mine by default the max battery sets the processor to about 249Mhz (probably due to a bug). You can edit the profile to run the CPU at 25%, 50% and so on.

 

I don't have my Asus CD with me and I need to download the Bluetooth drivers for V1Jp. I can't find it on Asus.com Where can I get the drivers?

 

Try these.

http://aps.toshiba-tro.de/bluetooth/pages/download.php

 

Nope, I tried and that didn't work. Installation failed when it tried installing the drivers.

 

Weird, that's what I've got running.

 

It stated that I needed to plug in my bluetooth device. I'm just going to end up using the Infored port for now until can get my cd from home saturday. If that don't work, then there just might be a more serious problem!

 

Oh it asked me that too, I had to push the Bluetooth button on top of the keyboard to turn on bluetooth.

 

I had tried that and it made no difference. I do have it working now though. It seems like XP installed some type of junk drivers for the bluetooth. I went and unistalled the device and rebooted XP, then started the installation. It works perfectly now (other than the Toshiba logo ) Thanks.

 

ok screw 3Dmark06, i cant fix it. maybe the x1700 card is too new and no one recognise it. i ran caesar 4 on high quality today and ticked all the gfx boxes, the result was quite nice actually. and then i ran San Andreas on absolute max gfx and it also looked fine and was playable. so overall happy with my new laptop. thanx to everyone who helped.

 

Has anybody come across a Canadian retailer that carries the V1Jp modular battery, or would I be stuck purchasing from some place like geared2play (their site says they have it, but actual stock may be another question)?

 

MilestonePC would be your best bet in Canada. Geared2Play also frequents the forums btw.