W3j Owners Lounge

Ok forget that last post.... my login name was different to what I thought it was, and the pasword on that was blank, so im back in.

 

Is anyone running 2GB of RAM? If you are does your laptop over heat or crash?

 

I have 2x1GB Corsair Value DDR667 MHz installed and my W3j doesn't crash or overheat. But my fan going on full speed all the time which I'm gonna nag about until somebody helps me. ;D

 

I have the same, and runs sweet as. Bupp2 maybe your fan is out of alignment? causing vibreation, no one else seems to have your problem, normally have mine set to office light, and there is a small breeze of warm air, sound is silent! even in a quiet room (unless I stick my ear next to the vent) and when I have it on super performance, the airflow and heat increases but the fan still runs quiet.

Maybe you shoud send it into service, if it is making that much noise, you fan may be faulty.

 

Yes maybe I should, but then I will be without a computer in 2-3 weeks...

I can hear the fan when I'm lying in my bed 2-3 meters away from the computer. Not so it irritates me but I can still hear it very well. I presume that's not normal if you're not gaming or have a demanding application running.

Edit: I have flashed the BIOS to the new version but that didn't help either.

 

bupp how did u get the undervolting to work...when i change the settings it seems to only want to stay at 1.00ghz

 

Has anyone gotten power4 gear to configure so you can run 25% or 75% on AC? Or rather any program to configure the cpu speed on AC? I can get power 4 gear to only go to 1000 MHz if I put it on quiet office and auto performance. I don't know why it does this because it still says the cpu should be 100% in the power4 gear configuring window.
I am using mobilmeter to monitor the speed. ANy ideas?
thanks
Dan

 

I've figured out that I can throttle the cpu with RM clock but I'm not sure if I should do this or not. Will it hurt the cpu in the long run?
thanks
Dan

 

Yes RMclock is a nice program, no it wouldn't hurt ur laptop in any way by throtling the CPU on AC, infact many want to do that, because many don't need all that power and heat and fan usage when on AC.

Also if your wondering how to control the X1600, you can download ATI Tools, NOT ATI Tray Tools, and you can manualy underclock the GPU and you can control it right there.

Make sure you remember the stock values

Hope this helps.


Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

hi guys
need help .. i am lost with ati drivers... never used it before.. just nvidia...
couldnt find any answers.. thanks a lot in advance !!

how can i check and update ati display driver only?
how to update Catalyst Control Center?
how to configurate ATI Tray Tools ? my 3d mark05 is 3900. most of you have 4200-4600
what is ATI Tools for,not ATI Tray Tools ? where can i download it and how to configurate right?

 

dl ati tools instead..thats what most ppl used to OC the x1600 to get those scores..default i get about 4000 so you're not that far off

 

thanks.. it seems to me i found solution.... http://forums.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=56531

but still dont know how to upgrade ati display driver

 

I'm still unclear as to what the Swappable Bay support will mean for me? What exactly is this "Swappable Bay"?

 

With the swappable bay in the W3j, you can remove the DVD drive and put in other things. Such as a travelers drawer, an extra 6 cell battery, or a HD.

 

The Swappable bay is one main reasoon why I got the w3j

at the moment I have a 100 gb Seagate HDD in the bay (where the DVD would normally go) its fantastic I have 200 GB!

I also have a battery that will slot into the bay and give me more battery time on the go.

I think every laptop should come with a swapable bay!

 

I like the bay as well, particularly for the battery. My one real concern with the W3j is battery life, but the 2nd battery makes it a null issue.

 

Excellent review of the W3J, jstucker.
I have been waiting for more reviews of the W3J to come out & yours was very informative. You mentioned your gaming habit; have you had a chance to play anything on your new machine? If so, are you satisfied with the gaming perfomance?
The one major knock against the W3J that I have seen pop up is the lock up issue. I hope this gets resolved in due course.
Right now, I am torn between the Dell E1705 & the W3J. Mainly because of the Dell discount coupons, which would allow me to get more machine for less money than the Asus. However, the portability of the W3J is a big plus versus the 17", 8lb Dell.
What is your opinion on the future upgradability of the W3J?
Thanks!

 

I would like to know the same thing. What is the future upgradeability of the W3J? If it is able to be upgraded to the Merom processor, I may go ahead and buy it. But if not, I'll have to reconsider.

 

I've been playing Civ4 and Galactic Civ 2 without a problem. Not exactly powerhouse games, but I've been problem free.

 

Is the fan always supposed to be on? seems kinda noisy for just idling. maybe thats just the way it runs all time?

 

My W3J seems to run the fan all the time, however the fan speed is variable. If i'm on quiet office and doing nothing more then word or web-browsing then the fan is barely spinning, if i'm gaming the fan speeds up significantly, however I can still barely hear it anyways.

 

Dangsy- does your w3j have a stable temp? When I am in quiet office or any other mode- the fan will be off for a while and then it will heat up significantly and then the fan increases for a while till it turns off. Seems to go thru this cycle all the time even when I am just idling. I monitored the temps with mobilmeter and it says the cpu temp is going from 51-59 in that continuous cycle i was talking about. No matter what I do (throttling with rmclock, changing power4gear settings, or whatever) I cant get it to be at a stable temp with the fan at its regular setting. I know the w3j gets hot but I'm just wondering if no stable temp is normal.
thanks
Dan

 

alright i've been trying to undervolt in NHC for 11x and for some reason it still uses the default voltage of 1.2625V no matter what i set it to

 

Isn't it any software you can adjust and set the fan to spinn off in a certain degree or something? Speedfan doesn't seem to work...

 

Hey guys

Have you guys been having problems with games crashing on you? I've tried to play CS:Source running on max everything but it always seems to crash about 5 mins into the game. Do any of you guys have the same problem or know how to fix this? Thanks in advance!

 

try installing the omega drivers- gooooooogle it

 

Are you using the preinstalled memory that came with your W3J or did you buy more?

 

Thanks for the reply earthdan ........i'll give it a try

I haven't upgraded any of the memory.....im using preinstalled memory that came with the w3j. Would i need to upgrade if I wanted to play games like Cs:Source?

Just wondering, have any you guys had games like CS:Source, World of Warcraft, and Far Cry constantly crashing on you when setting everything to max?

 

I havent had a single crash while playing Far Cry, Call of Duty 2, Rise of Legends, CS:Source, or Oblivion. I think I played Far Cry for like 3 hours straight once haha. At first, I played Far cry with the stock drivers without any trouble, but soon after that I installed the omegas because apparently they are supposed to make it run better. But with both sets of drivers I didnt have any crashes. Maybe try doing a clean install of your C drive-it's really easy with the cds that they give you. Then I would suggest replacing the ati catalyst drivers with the omegas

 

Any crashes I have had was a result of the stock drivers, get rid of those bad boys.

 

What is the max. resolution i can get from W3J?
Does it support, say, the Dell 24" or 30" LCD monitor?

 

As long as your monitor has a VGA plug in your good to go. The X1600 mobile supports a wide variety of resolutions but its doubtful you will be able to do any gaming on the resolution of a 30" LCD. Maybe not even a 24" at least at playable frame rates.

 

Thanks to this thread and all you guys providing info, I'll be buying my own W3J today. Looking forward to joining your community =)

I'll be taking a model with T2300, 512MB, 80GB, though, which is a bit cheaper in here, and I don't see too much difference between T2300 and T2400.
But the case of RAM is different. I know, that Hyper Memory starts working only when there is more than 1GB of ram. Is 512MB too small for this notebook?

 

I got rid of the stock drivers and installed the omega drivers and now I can game without a problem. Thanks for the help guys!

What do you guys use to clean your laptop screens? I wanna clean my screen because I have some sort of spots on the screen, kinda like oil spots. I want to get rid of it but it doesn't rub off. Any suggestions for cleaners for the screen?

 

hey Zedron i was doing a little searching around the net and found out that mid range GPUs don't even need 512mb of vram (hypermemory).

The reason is since the GPU cannot handle 1600x1200 and running everything at max settings with max AA/AF the amount of vram needed to do that is usualy over 256mb.

So don't worry you X1600 256mb will most likely never go passed that mark because it will be playing all games at 1280x768 and max settings and max AA/AF which is about 200mb or less of vram.

The only garphics cards that even need to have 512mb of vram are those extremely highend Nvidia and ATI cards, 7900 and X1900 stuff, where things like the res and max settings eat up a lot of Vram.


Also if you want to know if your gaming is doing badly, look for stuttering, if your game stutters try several things like turn down the graphics or something, but many just swtich to Omega drivers and for some reason that fixes all problems

So i highly advise that too.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

You notice any performance gains by switching drivers?

I'd prob. be apt to do this as well if so...I haven't had any problems with the stock drivers, so I dont' want to change just to change.

How tough was it? Just a few steps?

 

Yep it's very easy to install the omega drivers, pretty much you'd go into add/remove programs, take out the original drives then run the set up for the omega drivers, you won't see much of an increase with games that doesn't too graphic intensive but some games that push the W3J you might notice a few fps difference.

 

First of all, thanks for all the answers. I really liked the info about 512mb being enough =)

Yes, I've reinstalled the drivers. Not only that, but I've installed my own XP SP2 Pro, and didn't install half of the coming drivers and programs which I didn't need, so everything became a bit faster

Considering the video drivers. It's amazing, don't even doubt it, reinstall them immediately. Stock drivers, No OC, 3DMark05 - 3870 points, Omega drivers, No OC - 4210 points =) And that's just because of different drivers, Omega just rocks =)

P.S. I am absolutely in with love this notebook

 

When you say "original drivers" do you actually mean the ATi Display Driver(highlighted in the pic below)?



This might be the most stupid question ever; when I try to uninstall it asks me if I'm sure I want to uninstall ATi Mobility Radeon X1600; how will I see anything on screen if the GPU is uninstalled?? (Just want to make sure before I do anything stupid lol)

Also do I need to uninstall CCC before installing the Omega Drivers???

 

Hey guys, I will be joining you all soon!

Finally ordered my ASUS w3j from GenTechPC.com

It will probably be coming in on tuesday.

The model is the newer one with T2500ghz and 1x1024Mb ram.

I can't wait... *drool*

 

Hey Kal:
there should be something in your starttup tray that says its an uninstall utility for ATI. Use that - it gets rid of all ATI Catalsyst stuff. You will know it happens because after you restart your computer your resolution is all messed up- its like its on the default display. Then you install the omega drivers with the rad_w2kxp_omega_38252 file (whatever you download) and you should be set after that. It comes with "ATI tray tools" and I chose not to install that- it was giving me some problems when I wanted to connect to a TV. Some people have installed "ATI TOOLS" and say they like it but I don't really need to overclock my gpu so I just left it. Everything has been working great! good luck
Dan

 

Yes, the thing is that Windows has some default drivers, e.g. Standard VGA, so it will be working in 640x480 16bit mode.

You have to uninstall everything - CCC included. You won't regret it

 

Anybody had any problems with the configuration for their touchpad? When a click the properies button on the synaptics tab of the mouse control panel, the whole thing just crashes out say there was an error loading the properties page.

 

Use this to clean your drivers

http://www.drivercleaner.net/professional.html


Its driver cleaner, specify what you want to clean after installtion, do it once or twice to get rid of all the ATI crap, then install your omega drivers, it fixed the problems I was having attempting to install omega drivers on my desktop PC.

 

Thank you! I found the Uninstall utility under ATi Technologies in Program Files and I removed everything and installed the Omega drivers Now I have to decided if I want to overclock my GPU.....maybe I'll be able to get higher framerates in Oblivion

I didn't know that lol. I thought the screen would go blank once I uninstalled the GPU Thanks.

Thanks. I used it couple of times. Everything is running smoothly *knocks on wood*

 

how would I check what kind of ram and what speed the ram is running at?

 

a free program called everest. there are a few different versions of it so make sure you find the right one.

 

I just got my W3J and have been setting up everything as to how I like it, but as I looked through most of this gigantic thread and I saw no references to Winamp.

I was wondering if there was a way to make that CD-hotkey open Winamp instead of WMP. Thanks in advance.

 

Hotkeys are all controlled by HControl, and can't be reassigned easily. Somebody came up with a hack and posted the link around here, but it hasn't been updated in a while.

Link is http://power4gear.bk-kicks.com/hcontrol.htm
(thanks, coriolis).

 

If I use that program, will it mess up any of the other hotkeys, such as bluetooth/wireless/touchpad?