W3j Owners Lounge

@ danrew: Oh, I forgot to ask, do you have this problem before or after you install ZA? I tried to install SpySweeper a couple of hours ago and hcontrol.exe could not run, always came up with error dialog box, even after I uninstalled the SpySweeper. I have to reformat my hard drive again to regain hcontrol.exe's functionality.

 

Hi, I got my W3J last week. Got some question I hope you can help me with.

1, How can I fix the problem with standby and closing the lid? Windows doesn’t come out standby and I have to restart the computer.

2, I can’t get it to boot from the Vista Beta 2 DVD, when it says "press any key to boot from CD/DVD" I do, but then it just restarts the computer. Anyone else tried installing Vista on the W3J?

3, Is there anyway of swapping the Fn and Ctrl keys??


Thanks

 

Anyone install Catalyst 6.8 drivers via the direct linking from ATI's website:

Catalyst 6.8 Direct link

Someone was stating how they installed fine on their Acer TM8204, but I wanted to know if anyone has tried the official drivers on their W3J.

 

i'm proud to say... im a new owner of the W3J!!!!

you think i got a good deal?

1.83ghz, 2gb ddr2 667 cl5 twinmos ram, 100gb 5400rpm fujitsu drive + 60gb 5400rpm hitachi travelstar hot-swap, dvd writer, x1600 512 hypermem, 2 year global warranty, blueetooh mouse = all for 2.898k sg dollars? about... 1.8k usd dollars?

so anyone got any suggestions to optimize this baby?

 

I suggest to use "Search" options, it works for me :]

 

Haaaaaa arthurlee04 you must be a singaporean and you bought your W3J from Microware? Same here...

Oooops by 'same here' I mean I also bought from Microware... but I am an Indonesian..

 

Yes they work great!!

 

That's good to hear. I installed them (and even though Catalyst Control Center says that it is 6.7, even though all the files downloaded said 6.8). I tried 3dMark06 afterwards, and my score was nearly 100 points higher than it originally was with stock Asus drivers (2052 --> 2148).

 

lol i did buy it from microware. well ur close.. im a malaysian in singaporean going to an american school. haha.

 

Hi arthur, one day after I bought my W3J, I bought a bigger harddisk (Seagate 160 GB 5400.3 perpendicular) for the W3J (I changed the original 100 GB harddrive). Other than that, I changed the installed RAM with my own Kingston RAM (2 sticks of 1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 RAM).

BTW, do you find any graininess in your screen? I found that the screen is grainy.... after I came back to Jakarta. Nothing too disturbing, just want to compare with yours, since we got ours from the same store.

Regards,

Robby

 

I think it depends on what you are looking at, I have my windows set as Classic and their is graniness on the solid grey parts of the task bar, or anywhere there is flat grey (more aparent when screen is tilted forward and you are looking up at the monitor, but when you are looking at photos or DVD's it looks great.

 

In my case, the graininess is most obvious when the background is blue or bluish. But it's OK I guess, just don't want to think about it too much...

 

Wow 160GB? thats a lot bro. but i got the hot swap. so i already got 160gb. thats insane. my laptop has the same amount i do in my desktop =P. My guy gave me 2GB upgrade free and from 533 to 667 too. When and how much did you pay?


Uhm.. I'm sorta new to the lingo. But what is graininess? Right now.. i have no problems with my screen. Especially with alienguise installed on it.

 

Yeah, that's quite a lot, it's the biggest capacity notebook harddrive now. I bought my W3J on August 10 if I'm not mistaken, at Microware SLS branch. I paid the advertised price... SGD 2,898. I didn't get any bonus though... sigh.

The graininess is.... if you set the desktop background without any wallpaper and just use the 'windows blue' color, look closely and mostly the 'windows blue' color will seem not solid, like grainy. The discussion about this graininess are all over this forum. It seems that all notebooks with X1600 have this issue. And I don't think that this is caused by ATI's driver, because in my case, from the beginning (I installed windows from scratch in my W3J) the graininess is there.

BTW what is 'alienguise'?

 

Hey there. Do any of you W3J owners have some cooling pad recommendations? I've been looking around at some of the threads on the Accessories forum and there's quite a selection out there. I'm not sure which one to get as the W3J is mainly hot on the right side near the middle and bottom. Are there any effective and quiet cooling pads out there that are a good fit for the W3J?

Thanks.

 

alienguise is just a desktop theme. its called alienguise cause its installed on all alienware computers. as for graininess.. now that u say it.. a little bit

 

Woo, after reading these forums for weeks I have purchased a W3J today.

Great machine so far, the screen looks great [although on that note just noticing it now the grey and blues do look grainy..but this isnt really much of a problem, price was a little steep with taxes but this thing is worth it for me atleast... I've only had it for a few hours..

uninstalled norton but still too many processes running (52) what did you guys uninstall or did you just use the recovery cd to reinstall windows?

 

The recovery CD provided is actually an image of the disk as your computer arrived so if you try to use it, you'll be stuck with the exact same programs you already began to uninstall. If you look around the web, you can find guides on how to turn a recovery cd into a normal Windows XP install CD if that's what you really wanna do.

~ Brett

 

Set Intel Proset to let Windows run wireless, stopped Proset processes on startup.
Stopped Splendid Video Technology Process, Bluetooth and it's processes, Asus LiveUpdate, Modem Helper Program, Catalyst Control Center, Wireless Console 2, and maybe one or two others.

 

****, sounds pretty serious. Sorry about the slow response, exceeded my universities bandwidth limit so been gone for awhile. I havn't run into any problems with hcontrol.exe before or after ZA, you could probably find a new version of it if it's not working online. Sorry to hear about your drastic solution.

 

The solution is not drastic for me, because I have another notebook for working. The W3J is still new so reformatting is nothing for me (I kind of like the installation chores), just to try out different combinations. The SpySweeper I installed is the latest version, so maybe I have to wait some more before a version of SpySweeper that does not conflict with hcontrol.exe comes out. But I'm not too crazy about SpySweeper, so no problem.

BTW what version of ZA do you use? For protection against spyware, instead of SpySweeper, now I use ZoneAlarm Security Suite. It works quite well, but the latest version (6.5.722.000 if I'm not mistaken) always comes with close program dialog box everytime my W3J is shut down. So I revert to version 6.1 something.

 

Can you guys reccommend a tough sleeve/bag for the w3j? I wanna to protect my baby!!!

 

http://www.sfbags.com/products/sleevecases/sleevecases.htm

I use this for my W3J and I love it. Fits perfect inside my Timbuk bag.

 

I am going to buy a 7200rpm HD and was checking to see what drives people have upgraded to. I was thinking the HITACHI Travelstar 7K100, does anyone have one installed in their W3J?

 

Hey Coriolis,

I particularly liked your photo which compares the W3J with the S96J. But I was wondering if you could take some photos of the two laptops together from the side profiles, and the back, so I can get a better idea of how much thinner the W3J is.

Thanks heaps...

 

I am currently using one of those Hitachi 7200 rpm drives in my W3J. Seems to run pretty well. The main issue with it seems to be heat; it runs rather warm and you can feel the hard drive areas is warmer than the rest of the system on the base of the laptop.

In idle state though, Mobile Meter shows the HD to be sitting at 41 C, which isn't too bad I suppose.

 

Yea, I went through something like 4 clean installations before I got one that I liked, it's just kinda tedious. I was using the latest ZA security suite when I was running into problems. Now I've switched over to Avast! for anti-virus, and using the basic windows firewall, which, is pretty effective as long as you don't venture too deep into the porn realm . I've used spysweeper before, but I thought it was a bit taxing on the resources, so I gotta say I'm liking Avast! the best so far. I'm kinda looking around for a more comprehensive firewall but for now, I'll just have to trust Mr. Gates.

Also, I gotta say Shinza's ZeroShock sleeves are probably the best you can get. My cousin brought over a couple from Taiwan and they're pretty kick ass. They're out of stock on the 14' ones til mid-september but I'd say it's worth the wait. They're a lot tougher than any nylon sleeve I've seen so far.

 

FYI, now I use ZASS version 6.1.744.001 (the last version of the 6.1 branch) and it works for my W3J, no errors, nothing. A quite complete solution for me: firewall, antivirus and antispyware that does not conflict with hcontrol.exe, bluetooth light etc.

 

Not too cause any alarms but does our W3J use the faulty Sony battery?
Both for its main and 2nd optical battery?

 

Which Hitachi is that, the HITACHI Travelstar E7K100 HTE or just the 7K100 HTS? I heard that the E7K100 HTE will run alittle hotter that the 7K100 HTS.

 

Quick question: Does the built in bluetooth in W3J support A2DP?

Been googling and searching on the forum but cant find any info about it!

 

It is the HTS.

At this moment MM is reporting the HD to be at 48 C.

 

my fujitsu idles up to 46..so thats minimal heat difference for 7200..go for it if you can afford it

 

Does the W3J have a adaptor for DVI output?

 

No, it does not. If you want a 14" asus w/ DVI you have to get the A8jm. Or the 15.4" V1J is supposed to have DVI. Ive found it very hard to find DVI in laptops, maybe 5% have it right now

 

Mine certainly didn't come with one.

 

I was wondering if anyone has had issues with the cover scratching? I plan to lug this around in a book bag with stuff like spiral notebooks scratching around on it and other junk flying around. I know they make sleeves you can put the notebook in, but that seems like a hassle I'd like to avoid. Basically, how easily will the cover scratch? More or less than plastic? Thanks, and sorry if this was already asked, I haven't yet made it through all 69 pages of this topic.

 

Think it does. Coz i can listen to music through my bluetooth earphones.

 

The top will scratch less than plastic because it is so hard

 

I'd recommend getting a sleeve for your notebook so that incase you drop your bag you'll be okay. Get a sleeve that opens vertically so all you have to do is slip it out from inside of the bag. There's a topic on this in the forum and I've recommended REI's sleeve, but that's just me.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=71832

 

Sleeves is helpful. It can be put in the bag and take out the laptop only for avoid having any scratch around on it. Whenever we take out a laptop, we can leave the sleeve inside the bag without any scratch.

 

Do any major retailers like best buy or circuit city or office depot sell Asus laptops? I'd like to get it tonight or tomorrow without paying the ridiculous shipping it would require to do so. Thanks.

 

hmm, no big name retailers that I know of carry asus notebooks. those being best buy, circuit city, microcenter, fry's or compusa. I live in the chicago-land area, so I don't know if other places might carry them. generally, asus notebooks are not as well-known on this side of the pacific. and yes, dan7u the 14' fits the w3j very well.

 

I read this post about using the dual core properly in this forum. And the throttle key that they are talking about aint there. Will i see a performance gain if i add it or does asus have some other software to do the same thing becouse im happy with the performance of my w3j at the moment.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60416

 

does anyone know whether or not merom will be available on this anytime soon?

 

Search the forums for an answer on that one. I think you'll find out that you'll have to wait till at least October.

 

not sure if any w3j buddies here face the same problem with me...or it's just normal..

My battery...just seems to lose charge quickly when left unused....just like...I switch it off with full batt (and running a/c) for the night...the next morning when i switch on my a/c...the battery light (orange) lights up again for awhile....perhaps 2 mins before it goes off...

Anything wrong with that? Else how can i solve it?

 

mine does that one a week ..its just topping the charge off in the battery..this is the reason some ppl take their battery's out

 

I just ordered a w3j from milestonepc and I'm really nervous that it will have dead pixels. That will ruin my enjoyment of the notebook. I'm wondering how common it is for people to get dead pixels? Has anyone had them and been able to get an exchange or refund? Thanks.

 

Hi Tegis, in my W3J, the throttle key did not exist. We are supposed to add it by ourselves. I checked my W3J drivers cd and the hotfix was already there (in CPU Hotfix directory), so the hotfix is already installed in W3J. What's missing is the registry key and the addition of new switch in boot.ini. I tried adding the registry key and modifying boot.ini, however, my 3DMark stock score was down to 4174 (usually it was 4183-4184), so I don't think this mod will produce a significant performance gain. But maybe that's just me.. your mileage may vary.