W3j Owners Lounge

C'mon folks if you've joined this exclusive club, then pipe up and get some W3J comunity spirit! Let's compile some useful info in one place for any prospective W3J owners and pass on any useful advice to current users.

p.s. :asus:

 

Not sure if this would be useful advice, but I just went to Fry's today and picked up a Vantec Nexstar3 hd enclosure. The interface is SATA -> eSATA & USB2.0 Filled it with a 500 gig WD sata drive, I think it'd be a handy backup/extra storage solution for w3j owners and that nifty expresscard slot. Just be sure to fork over $30-50 for an expresscard eSata device. =) Why @ 3.0Gbs, it sure is faster than USB2.0 =D

 

That enclosure looks very useful, I found a review here http://www.techgage.com/review.php?id=3970 . just as an aside, can anyone tell me if E-sata supports host powered drives like USB can.

btw just incase someone hasn't noticed, try putting your W3 into standby, and check out the power button on the side, it starts glowing in a V. cool way! i love little touches like that

 

can the harddrive write at 3 Gbps?

 

thats just max transfer it cant write that fast. But remember when you connect SATA to USB it is much slower than using the sata bus.

 

hi,

just had a few questions before i buy this notebook in europe!


1. how loud is this notebook? i am after a notebook that is whisper quiet. i want to be able to work at night without it sounding like a jet engine! how often do the fans kick in? how silent is it for normal everyday tasks? how loud is it for intensive tasks like encoding or gaming?

2. how hot does it get? can it be comfortably used on ones lap? how hot does it get underneath? are there any blocked vents underneath if used on ones lap?

3. how good is the screen? the apple macbook pro claims to be brighter than past models. is it comparable to that screen? are the whites really good and other colours bright and rich or is it dull and murky? is it as good as normal desktop tft's made by samsung, dell etc?

4. how bad or good is the glossy screen? are there a lot of reflections? do you keep seeing your face on the screen when typing etc?

5. how good is the battery life when writing notes and browsing the net? how can the macbook pro get claims of +4 hours etc? just becuase of the underclocked gpu?

6. will be pairing it up with an iMac instead of a macbook or macbook pro; good decision? they seem to be blighted with problems!

7. anyone hooked it to an external tft/crt? whats the quality like on the external monitor via vga? will i miss not having a dvi port like the mb and mbp? when doing serious work like image editing and video work (80% of the time) i will hook it up to an external tft for more screen space. should i worry about image quality? the rest of the time i will use it as a normal laptop for notes and presentations. who else will use it mainly when hooked to a tft?

8. any annoying faults found so far?

9. how much of a bottleneck will the 4,200 rpm hdd be for us in europe? i will probably update it in the future when i have the funds!

10. any screen bleedings at the bottom or in the corners?

the answers will hopefully go a long way and help me purchase this laptop!

thanks,

 

What games are people playing on this bad boy? I downloaded some demos but am going to go buy a couple tonight to test things out. I haven't played games in like 4 years but want to get a couple. I know I'm going to grab Civilization IV, but I also want something that gives the x1600 a test and shows off its capabilities. Any suggestions?

Also, are there any TV tuner cards that will work with the new PCI-express card slot (or whatever the slot is called that replaced the PCMCIA slot)? I don't need this but just checking.

 

Redrob, try getting FEAR and Oblivion, theyre the two most demanding games systemwise right now and both are spectacualr gameplaywise.

 

Every decent lounge needs some luxury seating. Sit back and enjoy your fabby new notebook

 

apart from gaming! What are people using their W3J for?

video production? image editing? design work? notes? presentations? entertainment?

thanks,

 

@ Munky

1: virtually silent until you start using the machine heavily and the fan needs to kick in for a moment

2: The W3J does run fairly hot, the only vent on the base is in the rear of the centre so you should be able to run it on your lap for a while but i would recomend using the machine like that for a long time.

3: The Screen is finme in my opinion, i've seen better before, but i'm not disappointed by the W3's screen at all.

4: All glossy screens will suffer from glare but i can't see anything making the W3's screen any less usable than any other gloss screen notebook.

5: Haven't checked the battery life myself but other W3j owners have estimated around 4 hours for moderate use.

6: Not a fan of macs so i'd best not pass comment

7: There shouldn't be any difference using the W3 with an external display compared to any other machine using the same display, i wouldn't expect any issues here.

8: The lack of pcmcia is a minor annoyance, i've built up a fair selection of these cards and i can't use them with my new lappy. nothing major though, and this is something i took into consideration before purchasing anyway.

9: the slower drive isn't crippling but you can tell loading speeds will improve with an HDD upgrade.

10: i was using my W3 in total darkness last night and didn't notice anything untoward.

Hope that convinces you the W3 is a great laptop i can't imagine many people being displeased at all with their purchase.

 

I won't touch upon all of these but here goes...

1. So far - super quiet...not even a peep...I haven't worked it too hard yet so I'll edit this later if I find otherwise.

2. Air blowing out of the side is hot. The computer itself is not. And as has been said, there is a vent underneath so I wouldn't put it directly on your lap without making sure the vent is not blocked (just to be safe - not sure if you'd really be FUBAR by doing this). I put a book under it last night (have an aluminum lapdesk thingy coming today) and the book was only slightly warm.

3. The screen is really growing on me. I'm using a Dell c610 (15" standard) right now for work and when I compared web pages on both comps, I was surprised by how much more of the page I could see on the W3j - prob. 3 or more lines b/c of the extra real estate/width. The images are very crisp and VERY bright IMO. You do need to be looking at the screen at the sweet spot though as the viewing angles are not that forgiving.

4. I only see reflections when there's nothing on the screen (ie...when it's off). When you're on a web page or working on it, the screen is so bright that I don't see myself at all. Maybe a little with light reflections but this only seems to be the case if I don't have a direct viewing angle. Very minor problem regardless.

8. I'll expound more on this in my review, but I have been hitting the quick start buttons when moving the computer around. I tend to use it on the couch...etc so when I grab the sides to pick it up, I disable my wireless or trackpad. That's about it though...seriously.

10. I actually thought I had some when I first booted up. The bottom of the screen (when it was mostly black and loading windows) was noticeably brighter - a light leakage line right at the bottom screen bezel. I think this is because of the viewing angle I had though- I was sitting on a kitchen "barstool" and at a higher sitting angle than normal. I immediately stopped seeing it when XP loaded and I really haven't noticed it since. Also depending upon how "directly' I was looking at the screen this was less of an issue (again only at first boot).

 

my first laptop and this is a precious baby, im gonna wait till some1 has a tutorial on what programs i dont need, and how to uninstall norton, and install other utilities or new drivers.

 

Maybe I'm an idiot but I ran through the Norton setup and it's running.

Should I get rid of this pig, or is there some functional value?

 

IMO there are better programs than Norton. Besides I always try to get free counterparts, very often they are much better.

 

I was thinking maybe ZoneAlarm and AVG, but I heard ZoneAlarm anyway was hard to get rid of once it's loaded.

Norton is free for a while so maybe I"ll just run with that but...

I think I'm going to try and start stepping up my clockspeeds...do I need Omega drivers for that, or can I do that w/ stock drivers?

 

anyone know what's on the windows xp pro/recovery cd that came a long with the notebook? is it an image of the system when it first boots up (with all the programs and drivers)? i've never done a recovery before so i'm curious. i'm thinking about reformatting the hd and getting rid of the partition. will the recovery cd work as a fresh install and if i got rid of the partition?

so far the w3j is pretty cool.. still need to run some test though. only thing bothering me is the ac adapter outlet. sometimes when i move the notebook it'll stop charging and i have to take the adapter off and replug it in so the notebook would recognize it again. any of you run into this? it's not a big problem.. i'm just afraid one day the notebook will stop recognizing my adapter period. =[

 

I'd like to know more about the recovery process as I've never done it either and was considering it. As it stands now I'm using my second partition for games and I have just about enough games to fill 36 gigs so it looks like it will work out pretty well.

The plug in for my ac adpater is really difficult to get out. I have to pull on that sucker pretty hard and brace one of my fingers against the unit itself. Sounds like the opposite of you.

 

mine is like that also

 

Using a W3j right now, wow its sleek!

The screen is also quite bright, I was comparing it to the S96j, and wow!

I love the touchpad, the buttons are a pleasure to use. Overall, this laptop is pretty awesome, though it does get quite warm.

pics were taken on cell, I need to buy a digital camera

 

^ yeah mines tight as well. but even when the adapter is tight in the outlet and i move the notebook or touch the adapter it stops charging. guess it's real sensitive. now, when i do plug the ac adapter in and if charges i leave it alone. =] nothing serious.

if anyone could help with the recovery cd info i'd appreciate it. thanks.

 

It's easy, pop cd #1 in, restart computer, and follow the onscreen instructions. It's painless

 

I don't have any movement in battery either (as some have had).

 

The battery wobbles a bit if you press on the ends, but honestly, who does that

Doesn't wobble when shook neither

 

Mine is rock solid. I love how smooth the palm rests are...I'm still trying to get used to the mouse button...either I'm pressing on the plastic UNDERNEATH the mouse button (until I realize of course) or I'm in the middle.

 

I love this laptop! perfect size, weight and power for a college student like me. I'm posting this from the quiet floor of my library right now and about the noisiest thing on this laptop is the pointer pad's right and left click buttons, but it's not so bad since you can just tap the pad for a left click.

Also i've been having problems with the ATITool, someone told me it takes about an hour to find the max core and max mem but my laptop seems to turn itself off. Any suggestions or ideas?

 

My god...this laptops is blazing fast with 2gb and a 7200 rpm hdd!

 

Do you think its worth it to get the 2 GB of ram? espeicially since you would have to replace both of the sticks that are already in there. I guess I could always just get one stick of 1GB to have 1.5 GB in total. Good idea?

 

^ It won't run in dual channel that way - don't know if this would make any REAL world performance difference (dual vs. single channel).

You'd have to figure it would still be faster than 1GB...

 

I've been using Avast for two years now.. it's free and works excellent. I also use Omegas. From my experience, I've gotten higher OC results when I used to overclock my GPU. But even if you don't overclock while using Omegas.. you'd still get a higher benchmark than stock drivers.

 

is the 7200 rpm hd giving out more heat that 5400? temp differences? which HD (brand/make/model no) did u put in there?

cheers

 

Norton is already pissing me off asking me to authenticate every single thing that wants to connect to the internet.

Has anyone been playing Counterstrike Source or DoD:S? My w3 has crashed a couple times playing both and has a few hiccups. Everything maxed out of course.

 

^ That's not good. Did you bump up the x1600s at all?

Norton's doing the same for me...

 

A little off topic, but you may as well call this thread 'People Reize is Jealous of Lounge' >.>

 

No I haven't messed with OC'ing at all yet. I probably will later today. I was going to look around a bit and see what kind of performance other people were getting with the x1600 and CS:S unless someone like Mastha comes on here and lets me know what his performance is like (not sure he plays CS:S though).

LOL Reize.

 

I just picked up Civ4 today - not exactly a graphics monster but the game should be one.

 

Civ games are really good. Turn based games are a little slow for me. I played the demo of Civ 4 and didn't end up getting it but I can understand what the hype is all about. The only turn based game I ever got into was Final Fantasy Tactics.

 

I haven't done any temperature readings, but the hitachi travel star was said to run cooler than a 4200 rpm drive

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2840

 

have any of you detected dead pixels on your new w3j screens? mine comes in tomorrow; a dead pixel will drive me insane

 

Sup all,

Love, love, love this laptop. Screen is gorgeous! I'm also going to vote for Avast, I've been using it for a few months now and I like it much more than Norton - which I uninstalled as soon as I booted the machine. I was going to install HL2 and some other stuff today (my bro got me Chaos Theory) but I went to my gf's house and left the extra battery in the bay, NOT the DVD-Multi drive :::doh!:::

 

anyone know where i can get an extra set of logos, like the windows, atix1600, centrino duo, and bluetooth ones that are on the W3J? because i took mine off and just realized that i like it better with them on, but the old stickers are too damaged to put back on my w3j.

 

Email your vendor...if they have extras, I bet they'd be willing to kick you a pair.

 

Just got to playing with mine, thanks a ton to proportable. Ran 3dmark 2k5, stock speeds with omega drivers gave me 4168, very impressed. Now to try some games .

 

Anyone have recomendations for temperature tools? I'd like to compare my temps to y'alls since I have a 7,200 rpm drive.

 

What was your config? Fastwrites on/off? the normal omega, soft-modded 9500, or soft-modded 9800se?

 

Love that I can install Civ 4 and surf without taking a hit.

Just an unrelated noted note that it does say in the manual that replacing the HD will void the Asus warranty. Basically be careful.

 

Was with fastwrites off, normal omega profile. This thing is a beauty, i think im in love.

 

Just got mine, real sweet...

I dont know what to do with it next.... maybe I will turn it on......ha ha

The battery moves if you push it but to use the term "wobble" in my opinion implies that it is loose...

In my opinion it is fine, I do not consider it to be loose,

If you push it, it moves, but if I push on it..... I would expect it to move.

 

Anyone Oc'ed yet? I uninstalled old drivers and put in the newest catalyst drivers. When I go to ATI tool to mess with core and mem clock speeds the default speed shows up as zero and I'm pretty sure they are suppsed to read 450/450 or something like that.

If anyone can tell me how to take a picture of the screen I can post it.

 

Leave it on the default settings.