W3j Owners Lounge

Anyone know how to have the audio hotkeys work with Itunes? Right now mine launches Windows Media Player.

 

have any of you guys checkedFor/found dead pixels on your w3j?

 

I just got my W3J fired up and running through all the setup stuff. No dead pixels at all Weeeeeee. One thing I cannot seam to find the battery icon do I need to enable it or something?

 

As far as I can tell it only comes on when you're acually running of the battery, then it shows up as an icon in your systems tray in the bottom right hand corner.

 

Ahh I see it also says if your running of AC power it should change to a power plug but that does not show up either? On a cool note I only had it plugged in the AC outlet for 2 hours while battery was in and doing setup stuff and it fully charged in 2 hours.

 

The battery icon will come up when the laptop is running on battery. you change it to "always show battery icon" by clicking the battery and change the option.

 

Ahh ok thanks back to setting up my lappy.

 

I just installed my 2GB Ram and took some pics, thought this may be a good place to post, I flipped the HDD over to check as well, look at the warantee void seal on the processor, its only sitting on there!!

 

I am really interested in this laptop. Seems like it has the build of an IBM, and the power of a 17" in a 14". I am really fond of 13.3" laptops but this seems like a perfect compromise. Now, my concern with this laptop is the battery life. I plan to add a 7200rpm HDD and 2gb of ram for the fact that I might be doing some CAD and 3d rendering. So my question is, what kind of battery life should i expect with these changes. I do plan to use the modular battery also, so what would be the life while using the modular battery. I might also OC the gpu...depending on how it runs the rendering and CAD programs.
So, any input in battery life with the listed changed would be very much appreciated.

 

I also plan to do CAD and 3dVis (Autodesk Vis), Photoshop, indesign, Music recording and editing, encoding, some video work, I have 2gb RAM will let you know how it goes, I will use the optical bay for second HDD and extra battery, although the optical battery is not as big as I thought it would be, (well compared to a Dell one I have used) so will have to test and see what the battery life will be with both in.

 

I had several games crashing on me while running in "quiet office" mode. Switching to "game" or "super performance" with the top right button seems to fix that.

 

Please do keep me informed. I am highly interested in this laptop, I just need this information so I can pull the trigger.

Thank you.

 

Do those make a difference when you aren't running off the battery? Because I was running off the AC adapter.

Thankfully it hasn't happened now since I installed catalyst drivers.

I still haven't had any luck with overclocking. Ati tool doesn't detect my clock speeds and whenever I hit "detect max" the screen goes black. I left it there for probably 10 minutes thinking it might be testing but I never felt an increase in heat from the vent and it sure didn't act like it was doing anything. I don't know *shrugs*. Its my first time messing with an ATI card so everything is a bit foreign to me at this point.

 

does anyone elses W3J seem somewhat slow? when i start windows it takes a like 20-30 secs. and when i turn off my notebook it takes around the same amount of time to logout.

 

d12ag0n49 you might be able to shave off a few seconds for the start up by going into msconfig. Start -> Run -> msconfig -> OK -> Startup -> then disable a few programs that you don't need to boot up from the start. 20-30 seconds isn't too bad. My desktop booted up in under 20 seconds after a fresh re-format.

Also what kind of battery life are you guys getting?

1) How long when gaming with screen at full brightness ect.

2) How long with the screen all the way dimmed Wi-Fi off doing very light tasks?

3) Has anyone tried undervolting (the CPU) or perhaps underclocking the GPU when not gaming? Does that give better battery life?

Here in Taiwan the W3j only comes with a 4200RPM HD I'm told. I want to buy the W3j then put the 4200 RPM into an external USB case. Then get a 100GB 7200 from newegg or something. The RAM speed is only 533mhz vs 667. Perhaps later I will sell the 1GB of 533mhz and upgrade to 2Gb's of 667. Also it only comes with a core duo 1.66. But in Taiwan it costs quite a bit less and you get a free mouse, case, and 256MB Asus USB memory key.

 

Today I received RAM and HDD : 1x1GB Corsair 667 + Seagate Momentus 5400.3 (world's first 2.5" perpendicular recording hdd). I will try to change it today, but not sure if I make it (lack of time ), but stay tuned for updates.

 

Was wondering the same thing jason was wonderin - anyone know if nhc works accurately on the w3j for undervolting? I read somewhere nhc doesn't work on duo core but not sure if anyone else can confirm this.

Mastha: what's with that new perpendicular recording hdd? I saw it on newegg. How exactly does it differ from regular drives? Let us know how the process goes and if that instantOn feature is still avail. even after the hd swap. =)

seems everyone either uses the w3j for gaming or video work. as for me, i use it for eq2, video ripping/editing, dvd burning, music editing, molecular modelling, and taking notes. Haven't been able to do much w/ it (gotta work on the fish tank) but I'm getting around 3 hr on it web surfing, bt on, 1/2 brightness. Haven't cycled the battery yet though.

 

I get the same thing, I believe you're suppose to click on the "max mem and max core things" however when I do that the entire screen goes black/white or red and i have to hold the power button down to turn it off. Anyone have any ideas of what i'm doing wrong?

I've uninstalled old drivers, updated with recent omega catalyst drivers, and run ATI Tool. If i skipped a step there please tell me!

 

@ kierkegaard + dangsy : check your ATI TOOL version, I have 0.25 beta 10 but I heard that newer versions don't seem to work fine on some laptops. Mine works fine. Besides you may want to check newest Omega's (based on Catalyst 6.5, released today I think).

EDIT : Sorry guys, new hdd will be installed on monday

 

Download Itunes 6 Multi-Plugin. http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/showthread.php?t=32733

 

You might wanna try ATi Tray Tools... I had the same issue you had when I tried ATi Tool, but ATi Tray Tools work perfectly.

 

will i notice a big difference in speed if i upgrade my w3j with a 7200 rpm hd?

 

Personally I have no idea but others have said the differences will be negligible. Now if you're using the laptop in such a way that a faster HD will be really advantageous (maybe movie editing or something like that) then maybe so.

Oveclocking is disabled using ati tray tools. I think the installer prompted me with a question about that when I was installing the omega drivers. If I hit "no" instead of "yes" I think I could use tray tools to do it.

 

does anyone know how to disable the adobe speedlauncher and bluetooth manager programs from the startup menu?

 

Oh man this is horrendous-
My w3j arrived today from MilestonePC at 1130 am but it is sitting in the Canadapost depot. I called to see the status and the girl I was talking to said it might not get delivered today!!! I have been obsessing about this computer for a while and it would really suck to know that its here but I can't actually touch it. (apparently I'm not allowed to go pick it up from the depot- it has to get sorted and delivered first) So basically I might have to wait till monday to pick up my baby.

 

doh sorry to hear that, hopefully things will get moved along and you'll have it to enjoy for the weekend.

You can disable those icons from Start>Run>msconfig>startup . I wanted to disable them as well but I wasn't too sure how critical they were to the system itself. I know that I definitely won't be using the modem and bluetooth but I wasn't too sure about Asus Utility and the Pmode taskbar. Does anyone have any recommendations?

 

This laptop is really great! I've already gotten several compliments about it at work today. Haven't got anything done as yet, but man, this is one sweet machine. I got about 4:10 with screen all the way dimmed, wireless and bluetooth off. It was on the first charge, so maybe it will improve! First thing I did was uninstall Norton.

Does converting to NTFS mess up the recovery software? Anybody know?

 

just wondering if any of you have the 6cell opt battery..wondering if its possible to break 6hrs with that

 

6 hours? Hmm that may be very hard to break. But you know, never say never.

 

yea really i would like to take in any suggestions on which we do not need. also any max stable undervolt and oc combinations. thx

 

i disabled bluetooth manager, aolsoftware.exe, motorola help program for the modem, asus liveupdate, and nerocheck.exe

 

I have the 6 cell battery installed now, however I havent yet just left it on running to test battery life. Windows will only report one battery at a time, and like Kansa said, my primary is showing me 4:10 at battery saving mode. So I'd imagine getting 6 or maybe a little more with both batteries, on battery saving mode would be achievable.

Also, I don't think the NTFS conversion will mess up the recovery software. That partition won't be converted, so it'll still have it's ~1.89 GB in FAT32, untouched. As far as I know, it should still run. I moved around my partition sizes, too, and it seems to have had no visible impact on the recovery partition.

Regarding boot times, someone who said it takes a while to boot - mine is flying, like a demon. I hit the power on button, I hear that nice little Asus jingle and then I'm at my desktop, similar scenario when I shut down.

And for the person who wants to get Adobe quickstart and other programs out of the StartUp folder - a few ways to get rid of programs from starting at boot. (1) right click on the icon in the StartUp folder (start->prog->start up) and select Delete - say yes and the shortcut is gone, and not running at boot. (2) As said before, use MSCONFIG (start->run->"msconfig") and go to selective startup and uncheck the .exe files you don't want running. (3) alternatively, if you're comfortable in your registry, you can delete the values from there (start->run->"regedit"; HKEYLocalMachine->Software->Microsoft->Windows->Current Version->Run)

Hope this helps - others should feel free to chime in and support/correct me

 

Hmmm....aolsoftware.exe .... I didn't notice that one. I'll have to double check and if I find it - it's gone

 

I love this screen. In my humble opinion, WXGA res is perfect for this size. It is really clear and sharp.

It's surpassed my expectations so far. I love the speed (multitasking is a sweet, sweet thing on this baby). Silky smooth.

The two little niggles that I noticed (not a deal breaker, but it's like the first time your GF/spouse farts) so far are that the right hand palmrest rubber foot doesn't touch the table. The other is that the hinges feel so solid that it takes two hands to open it from the front, as trying to open it from the sides makes the whole unit rock back (no leverage). BUT--these are only small things. It is so nice. Lovin' it.

 

aolsoftware.exe was from the AIM program that i downloaded.

 

A-Lit,

which startup programs did you disable?

also when i restarted my system a window popped up that said i have chosen selective startup mode. is that normal?

 

d12,

I disabled start up for the Motorola modem - since I hope to never, ever need dialup again anyways - and I also made sure to disable/uninstall all Norton items, i.e. antivirus or systemworks, whatever was on there I also took out Nero. I have a BlueTooth mouse that I'm using, so I didn't want to disable any of the BT stuff, and everything else has been working extremely well and fast, so I didnt really feel a need to disable it.

On another note, did anyone here purchase the extended warranty? I did, and I searched the Asus websiteand found that you can activate the warranty online rather than mailing in the postcard. I was going to do this, but noticed that it asks for a "password" from the warranty card... anyone have any idea what this is? Here's a link to the Asus page describing the activation http://member.asus.com/faq/member_faq_us.htm#extend. The "contract code" # I have, I don't know wtf the password is, though.

Thanks

 

Can't agree more.

I played some games on it last night and it's an all around great scren.

 

A bit off topic, but how much is the capacity of that Fujitsu 100GB HDD? I had a Fujitsu MHV2100BH (SATA) in my Samsung X60 and HD Tune reports the capacity as 86.1 (~92.4GB), which is well short of 100GB. I wondered if there was a hidden partition, but it must be well hidden for neither PartitionMagic nor Acronis MigrateEasy to see it.

Thanks,

John

 

I can't comment about nhc, but I have been using Rightmark CPU clock with the T2300 on my Samsung X60. I have dropped the voltage at maximum speed from 1.263V to 1.05V. Unfortunately, the minimum voltage for these new CPUs has been locked at 0.95V so there is little potential to enhance the battery running time, but dropping the maximum voltage will reduce the power / heat under heavy load.

John

 

I have 91 gigs and I think I've read that others have about that too. Thats with the 2 C and D partitions combined. There is a third. The recovery partition is 1.8 gigs for a grand total of 93-94 gigs.

 

Hi,

I am looking to pair up a W3J with an iMac, as I need to be mobile sometimes.

A lot of you seem to be wanting to carry out a lot of intensive tasks such as 3D, Photoshop, CAD, DTP, music recording, music editing, encoding video and video editing etc with the W3J.

Coming from OSX to XP, I have a few niggling worries!

If I want to create music and video on the go then what apps are recommended? I like using iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, Final Cut Express and Logic Express to do all video and sound work.

What apps are you guys going to use on the W3J or are currently using to do the above-mentioned tasks?

The W3J keeps tempting me over the MBP and MB!

Thanks,

 

hey Brigand21 and TheUndertow thanks for your earlier replies to my 'many' questions. they helped my research!

running super quiet/silent - computer noise irritates me when working in a silent environment.

 

*Caution*

I would advise those of you looking to upgrade the memory NOT to buy a-data brand ram. I had A-Data in my toshiba M100, which was crashing due to the A-Data ram, so I returned the ram to newegg for replacements. I have found the W3J to run unstable with this ram also, so I replaced the A-Data ram with the stock ram and it performs flawlessly.

Luckily I'm getting my refund from newegg, and I'll try the g.skill brand.

1) For those who upgraded the ram, what brand are you using?

2) What are some good utilities to check all the temps of my computer?

 

1. Corsair
2. NHC?

 

I'm doing some video editing with this puppy...I'm pleasantly surprised. I've been working off and on for the last 2-3 hours and I'm just getting a little warmth under my right wrist.

Using MS Movie Maker. Seems to be doing admirably and the price is right.

 

when you use the function keys, how do you remove the box on the top left? it seems to stay there

what is the screen replacement policy for the w3j? i think there are two dead pixels on mine

 

how do u know which updates you need to install from the ASUS download page?

 

sorry to hear about that. Just contact your vendor.

 

i run my w3j on the optical and main battery and have noticed that when battery 2 or the optical battery goes to 0%, the cpu turns of the LCD screen. i thought my backlit burnt out, but when i hit Fn F7 the LCD turns back on. has anyone else noticed this? when this first happened to me i paniced because i thought i had a faulty W3J.