W3j Owners Lounge

heh i tried it too just for kicks..barely a mm difference if any..i wouldn't be worried about it

 

No, no... in itself not at all.. I thought it could be related to the screen rippling at a certain point (pressure point)... This could be explained if the screen enclosure isn't flat... but yeah, its really not a concern.

 

The notebook is really awesome and i only really have one concern with it. Even tho the hinges feel solid and the lid opens smoothly, there is a mild crackling (granola bar wrapper) noise coming from the hinges (Try opening the lid slowly and see if you can hear anything)... The reason its a little disconcerting is i don't remember it making any noise when i got it... I'm not sure whether it might be the wires inside the hinge moving around.

I'm not sure whether the interior of the hinge is plastic or metal... If it is indeed metal then the chance of one of these hinges breaking is next to nill.

 

less than 1mm over 13 inches of linear run? I believe that's likely well within manufacturing tolerances for the product. Plus, it still goes flush when closed.

Nothing to worry about - everyone can go back to enjoying their systems .

 

emu I would contact Asus, the sound you are describing, crinkling wrapper sound, in my opinion is not normal, it may just be a plastic wire guard or something that has moved, but I would get it checked out, I have no idea about whats in the hinge for the W3J but I know my old compaq had a ribbon for the LCD that wrapped around the hinge.

 

hmm..mine has slight creaks..but i don't believe it to be anything to worry about..lets not make emu send it back for something trivial

 

Hey everyone, just have a question for all the W3J owners here.

How is the audio? Has anyone tried using the laptop with a 5.1 system? How well does the Intel HDA onboard chip pull it off (i.e. for games)?

 

I have just spend a day testing the audio output with AKG reference headphones, Headroom Desktop Amp and Schure E500s, I will post in detail this weekend, but result was audio is very good quality.

 

Hey, thanks for the response.

By the way, the 3.5mm (1/8") line-out jack is SPDIF right? Optical minijack?

 

It's SPDIF, no optical.... 5.1 is only achievable through a digital connection... Analog sound quality is amazing in my opinion... It easily beats the nforce2 onboard audio, which to me was terrific... My 2channel home audio equipment only has analog inputs, unfortunately... But i can definately see using this laptop as part of a hifi system.

 

@emu : you're wrong, it's optical. Check my photos in this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=55172&page=5 Besides I check it with analog SPDIF cable and it didn't work.

 

That is what I thought.
The W3J chipset has an Intel High Definition Audio onboard sound chip which is supposed to support 5.1 or even 7.1 audio. It would not have made any sense if the 1/8" jack was not an optical minijack.

 

sorry bout that... I thought it would say its a toslink connection if it were optical... all the better!

 

Has anyone figured out the solution to the graniness issue on these laptops?

 

theres a graininess issue?? i happen to like the screen just fine, no complaints there.

 

yeah..a bit disappointed about that..first thing i did when i got it was try my fps2000's..ancient i know but it didn't work at all

 

found this:

"Adaptors do exist to convert the coaxial RCA Jack S/PDIF to the optical TOSLINK S/PDIF and vice versa (though most individual adaptors are one-way only). All require some sort of external power supply. The "optical" version is advantageous for applications where electrical noise or many wires are an issue such as car audio."

its weird how there are 2 types of S/PDIF (optical and electrically wired) and yet there isn't a specific name for either... considiering the electronic noise in soundcards with analog out, it was a good design idea to put an optical connection in.

 

Hi, been following this thread for a couple days now and I gotta say that this is a pretty impressive source for w3j know-how. Got my w3j 2 days ago, didn't like the two fat32 partitions so I reformated and loaded windows xp pro with the installation disc I used for my desktop, loaded the drivers in the order they were listed on the driver disc and now my system runs almost identical to my desktop. Loaded ZoneAlarm but I seem to running into occassional freeze ups that occur sometimes when I have to grant permission to programs. Anyone else have freezes like that? Another minor problem I'm havin is that when windows starts, my bluetooth is always on but the indicator at the top left isn't lit. I have to turn bluetooth off and then on again to get the indicator light to appear. Just wonderin if anyone knew any tweaks to get rid of these nuisances.

 

I managed to post about the audio quality, I was surprised at how good the quality was, check it out

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=71320

 

What's the best value for money setup for the W3J? I was thinking of the 1.83 Ghz, 100GB 7200rpm, and 1x1GB 667 DDR2. Does it sound ok? Or should I opt for the 2.00Ghz for some more cash?

 

whats the price difference? to be honest i only went for the 2.0 Ghz with the 1 stick DDR ram cuz it was $100 difference...

is the 1.83 you are talking about the older model? The place i bought mine gave me the choice between the 1.83 and the 2.0 but they had a price difference... For only $100 difference i went for the better one...

 

It's about an extra $100 AUD for the 2.0 ($50 USD about), and an extra $100 AUD for the 2GB.

Is the extra performance justifiable? And how about the 7200rpm HDD over the 5400rpm?

Oh yeah, and does this void the warranty?

 

Hi danrew, I just bought my W3J 4 days ago, and right now I'm in the process of reinstalling all the drivers and software (after reformatting from scratch using winxp pro from my desktop also). I don't know about ZA, but for your bluetooth indicator problem, you should install the Wireless Console 2 thingy (it's in the driver cd, under the Wireless Device Driver and Utility, stated as 'Wireless Console Utility'). Hope this helps.

 

Only to customers in certain states... that will be all gone soon.
Faster shipping times, and no sales tax [except MO customers].

 

Hmm, maybe that wireless console thing will help. The weird thing is that, the light does come on, but only if I disable the bluetooth first, and then turn it back on. I'll try out that wireless console thing. Just kinda looked like an unecessary thing to install to me.

 

Hi everyone, I am a new w3j owner. So far the laptop is a joy to use. I have a couple of questions and maybe you have the answers already.

First, is there a way to disable the hot buttons on both sides of the laptop? I keep disabling the wireless card and the touchpad by accident when I use the keys close to them.

Second, is there a way to swap the Fn key and the Ctrl key on the lower left side? I keep hitting the Fn key when I want to hit the Ctrl key.

Thanks in advance!

 

well you could close the program hcontrol.exe to do that..as far as the fn and ctrl keys go..i think there's a way to do it in bios but most ppl decided its more complicated than its worth and a lot more got used to it..you're looking at one

 

Thanks for your reply, jterp7. I can't find a way to change the Fn and Ctrl key in the BIOS. Do you need a newer version of hte BIOS to do the swap? Any link you could provide? I tried to search but haven't found anything yet. Thakns.

 

yea i have that same problem with the bluetooth light not being on, it would be nice if someone could help us out....Also, does anyone know how to get itunes to start by pressing the media button...i tried doing that multiplugin thing but i still can't get it to work windows media player always loads instead

 

You can't find keyboard mapping assignments in the bios because it isn't there. You just have to join the rest of us and get used to the positions, too . The only way I'm aware of to effectively do this is software based, and there are a few options floating around that you can probably find through google, etc.

 

I haven't found a software-based solution that works because the fn itself key doesn't generate any scan code. If you know of one that works, please post.

 

Mine came today and it is awesome!

 

Of course it is...
Hopefully we can get more of these in stock soon.

 

i dont know what to do, no broken latch, dead battery, or broken sound!

 

Meh, should there be anything wrong with a laptop when you get it?
Anyway, no luck with the bluetooth light, but I think it might have something to do with the Hcontrol.exe program. Earlier in the thread (probably on the 10th page or something) someone pointed out that some people have been playing around with the Hcontrol.exe on their Asus rigs, so I'm thinkin I might look around at that. Just ripped out zonealarm, my laptop doesn't seem to care much for it. Just usin the windows firewall and avast! for antivirus.

 

My HD makes a "clink" sound once in a while....goddamnit fujitsu... I hope its not a faulty drive.... I'm trying to tell myself its nothing, but no Harddrive i've installed/used before makes that sound once in a while.... I don't know what else the sound could be but a head hitting something.

 

Hanging around these forums too long can make you a bit paranoid, but its only a small percentage that have problems, and thats going to happend with any electronic good.

HDD clinking, how often is it? and have you run any HDD diagnostics for the drive?

http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/storage/hdd/support/utilities.html

 

the reason it bothers me is its not the normal clicking/grinding/whatever of hard drives... its a distinctive clink once in a while (once every couple minutes)

The Fujitsu drive utility doesn't detect the hard drive, even tho in the "readme" text it lists my model as being supported (MHV2100AH)

I tried powering down, and powering back up and still the drive won't be detected.

 

Could someone with a w3j please run the above linked utility (by NZwaverider) to see if their drive is detected? Thanks guys.

EDIT: the drive appears to be ok, you just have to run the program in true MSDOS.

 

i'll run it when i get off work. I hear a *click* every once in a while, but it's not frequent

 

I've done extensive research on this issue and have come to the conclusion that there will never be a software solution since the fn key generates a signal that never leaves the keyboard and thus cannot be overriden. The only option is to:

1) Rewire the keyboard yourself
2) Swap the keyboard with one compatible with the W3j that has the keys in the right place (not sure if this exists)

I had to switch back to using my old Dell Inspiron (W3j RMA'd for problem with standby mode) and remember again how nice it is to have the Ctrl key in the 'correct' position. With the W3j I have to constantly contort my left hand into unnatural positions to do ctrl key combinations.

 

they let you rma it for that reason?? did you get a refund? you can't really fix the standy issue unless you do a bios update (which as i understand is not yet available), i'm pretty sure...

 

The standby problem with my W3j is unlike those experienced by most owners. Here's a link to my post regarding the problem: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=70062

Btw, anyone know what the average turnaround time form RMA's is? I have a feeling given the current shortage of W3j's, the repair could take quite some time.

 

On my winbook SI the drive would clink nonstop for over a year, and it is still working today

 

Hey, can some of you W3J owners please post some of your 3dmark06 results? Most of the reviews I've been able to find on NBR have only given results from 3dmark05. Also, if your GPU is overclocked, please mention that.

THanks a bunch!

 

My own guess is they are not related, the supply of the laptops come from Taiwan.

There are local service centers in most countries that your laptop will go to if you RMA it, completely diferent countires, completely different service.

and in terms of your power management problem, did you know that even if your laptop is plugged into power it will still suspend (if the setting tell it to)

while the laptop is plugged in I would disable all of the hibernation and standby timeout settings to never in every P4G setting. and see what happens.

 

I had tried all these settings that you've suggested previously without success. The problem was not that it was going into hibernation but that the machine lost power while in standby mode without saving the state of the machine to the harddrive. Therefore, when pressing the power button, the notebook simply does a cold boot. Hoping to hear back from Asus soon about the status of the repair.

 

hey

A bit off topic but i got my laptop today ( the w3j ). I coulnèt wait so i just headed buy it hehe

Its a sexy beast, beautiful design,im already in love.

 

that exact problem of losing power while in standby happened to me in the first two days of owning the w3j..but after the bios update its never happened

 

Hi again danrew (I suppose it should be andrew?), are you from Singapore? I bought my W3J there because it does not come to my country (Indonesia). OK here is what I did when I reinstalled my W3J from scratch: used WinXP Pro disc, then installed the drivers from W3J drivers cd according to the order. Wireless Console 2 is supposed to be installed before you install the bluetooth driver I think.