~ Asus U6 Owners' Lounge ~

The Asus rep's in Finland didn't actually offer ANY explanation (they claimed they'd never heard of this before) - so they advised me to RMA my U6... That was 3 weeks ago and I'm still waiting to get it back.

But seriously... an "emergency battery"?! That's so lame.

 

Yeah, it sucks. Big time! The service-status on my U6 now shows that they're waiting for a new fingerprint scanner to arrive. That'll take another 15 days..... so yeah, I'm very pleased with my 15.000 NOK investment so far...

 

Oh yeah! The service status on my U6 shows the much-anticipated replacement part (or whatever it was they were waiting) has arrived, and on top of that it's already repaired and they're preparing it for shipping - finally some siwft action! I want my U6 back so much I don't even care much whether they fixed the 3 cell battery bug/whatever or not...

Hmmm... maybe the long wait was just a cunning plan to soften my anger. The engineers knew they couldn't fix the problem, so they put it on hold for so long that my hard feelings would melt away and I'd be pleased to get my notebook back even though it wasn't fixed...

Well, they succeeded

 

Hehe, that sums up pretty much of my status as well. Feels like I'm waiting for ever getting that polished, good-looking little thing back.....and I truly miss it

Checked the service-status yesterday, and they are waiting for that fingerprint-thing to arrive from Holland. A friend of mine told me I should probably be able to adjust the CPU-frequenzy from within the BIOS? Anyone heard about that? Is it possible to force the CPU to run at full speed, even when the 3 cell is the only source of power?

 

Well, the last time I checked, there was not much else to adjust in the BIOS other than the system time. It was all very basic, certainly no CPU adjustments of any kind to be seen. I was actually looking for some memory timing options, but there wasn't any, either (I might try Memset-utility once I get my U6 back to see if there's any room for improvement in the timings).

 

with my 6cells battery, 3D performances totally go down when I'm on battery... To the point where the 3DMark 2006 wont even run some tests anymore...
I checked cpu performances and these were fine, disk too, which means it can only be some sort of aweful demotion with the gpu.
Side note: I've even turned off powermizer and it did not change a thing.

EDIT: the cause is actually simple
when going on battery the gpu clock speed is halved
same with shaders...

EDIT2: Some amusing findings:
On Battery: Core clock: 182MHz Shader clock: 364MHz Memory Clock: 800MHz
On AC: Core clock: 432MHz Shader clock: 864MHz Memory Clock: 400MHz
(What the heck? memory is going at lower speeds on AC?)

EDIT3: Okay for those that might have problems with the speed demotions doing aweful things(might even apply to the 3cell batteries problem)
Install riva tuner, Go into the Power User tab, go in Rivatuner \ NVIDIA \ Overclocking.
Set the EnablePerfLevelForcing variable to 1.
Then go into the Main Tabs, in the driver settings block, click on the customize button, and choose the first icon(system tweaks), and in there tick the "Enable driver-level hardware overclocking", and tick the "Force constant performance level" to "performance 3D".

Basically, it seems the card comes with 3 levels of performances builtin(2D/low 3D/perf 3D) and the video card(driver? firmware) has some nasty demotion for the 2D option when on battery.

(Oh and for the CPU speed demotion on battery, use something like speedswitch)

EDIT4: low 3D works fine for video playback(which is about all I need that needs the gpu) here, so if you're not playing games/doing 3D intensive stuff, you might want to choose that.

 

I too noticed lower 3D performance on battery, but this was fixed by reverting to original (167.xx) video drivers. The newer drivers (I think they were 184.xx, but I'm not sure) I got from laptopvideo2go were very slow on 3D. This might be due to Powermizer, though, as I didn't find the setting to turn it on/off. Maybe it was on for the newer drivers, but off in the older ones. I dunno. However, the original video drivers that shipped with my U6Sg worked just fine for the games I tried, so I just left it at that.

 

Sadly since I'm on XP... And there are no original drivers for XP... I was pretty much stuck:/

 

Oh, OK. Sorry, didn't notice you were running XP. Anyways, you might want to check if there's 167.xx drivers for XP, and if they work without the hassle with RivaTuner (what drivers are you currently using?). So are you now running the GPU with higher-than-normal clocks all the time, or have you just corrected halved core/mem clocks back to normal? In case of the former, does the battery life suffer?

 

Still I'm waiting for sb who send an image of his/her recovery partition. Cause my recovery partition is all GONE.

 

Well... got my U6 back today... All they had done with it was change the battery. Needles to say it didn't help one bit. Performance on battery power is as poor as always. This is so great! After all, it only took them around one month to "repair" it, and it did absolutely no good.

So I called Asus to let them know that I wouldn't be leaving this to that. I demanded a working battery, a compensation, or break the deal altogether. The rep I spoke to couldn't promise me anything, and neither could his supervisor. He promised to get back to me once he got hold of someone who has the authority to make such calls (he actually called me back later this afternoon, if only to let me know that he hadn't yet got a chance to speak to anyone able to make the decision, but he would try again tomorrow).

Also, in the meantime, the Asus rep had emailed to China and asked about this issue with the 3-cell battery. The reply he got was pretty much the same that henriani also reported: the 3 cell battery is just for "emergency use", and shouldn't be used as a primary battery. That's a load of BS! If they had told me so BEFORE I bought the darn thing, then that would be another story. But to launch a statement like this in retrospect is just a big load of... You know what.

On a side note, I'm so happy to finally get my gorgeous laptop back... even if it's only working at half the pace.

 

First of all, hello everyone. I just ordered an Asus U6SG-A1. By the time this thing gets to Europe from the States, I will grow old and die . It comes with Vista Business and I don't like that. I have nothing but bad experience with Vista. I have an original Vista Ultimate Copy and it is a pain in the beeep. It works today with my other XP machines on the network, it refuses to work tomorrow. Will not bore you with this. Before I posted here I was 100% sure that I will put XP+Sp3 but seeing that there are some issues I wonder if I am not better off with Vista. Another thing, it seems that Asus made things easy for us because you can set the SATA HDD in compatible mode. When I first slipped an XP Corporate disc and added SATA drivers, I did it manually and I modified the setup files and cabs. After 6 failed discs I got one . Now you can use the original disc without problems. Anyways, back to the U6. I saw a rumor that the U6SG-A1 might have HSDPA but did not find confirmation. Some people here have it some don't. I am still confused . Can anyone post some results with the Penryn 8100 and Nvidia 9300?

Cheers,
Wish...

 

This laptop has been my first experience with Windows Vista. I am a Ubuntu Linux user and almost never boot into Windows, but for me Vista hasn't been all that bad. The very first program I tried to install threw a hundred error messages and overall the operating system is a little bit sluggish and slow compared to XP. On the other hand, it seems to feel like a more complete operating system and given some time it should be good.

 

Wishmaker, what kind of results are you looking for? My U6Sg with T8100 & 9300M G gives a score of around 1500 in 3DMark06, and around 4700 in PCMark05. Those are the only benchmarks I've done so far.

 

Information is a vital keyword here, I think. Asus should have informed us of the reduced performance when on the 3 cell battery BEFORE we bought, but that wouldn't be much of a commercial argument, would it? Anyway, a very important criteria for me when I decidede to go for this model was precisely speed og swift respons - none of these seem to be present when running on the smallest battery.....

Talked to the service-guy again yesterday. They were still waiting for that fingerprint-reader to arrive from some distant country. I don't know what to expect from the laptop when I finally get it back - I really hope the practical use of it lives up to the shiny surface.....

 

Thanks. That is what I wanted to know. Anything I should expect in the first few months of usage?

Is the processor working at a reduced frequency when using the 3 cell? At the end of the day, you do not buy a laptop because Asus says it is nice. You buy it because of the results you see in benchmarks. People doing these reviews and benchmarks did not mention the low performance on the 3 cell. Every review I found states that the 3 cell does not offer adequate running time. That is it. So, you should put some of the blame on the testers, if not 95% .

 

You know what? Despite all (and there have been issues aplenty...), I'm still quite pleased with this little gem of a notebook.

Perhaps that's because there really aren't many direct rivals for it, I think. It's extremely rare to find a full-fledged Core 2 processor and decent graphics power in a 12" shell with much less than 2 kg of weight. Because of this, I haven't had the feeling of "Oh c***! I should've bought that one instead of this one", you know? And I think that's the key thing here. Despite it's flaws, there really isn't any alternatives with similar specs (if you know of a superior alternative, please DON'T let me know ).

Most of the frustrations I've had have been software related. The Asus programs really aren't too well written. Fortunately, some of the problems have been fixed already (BIOS update), and for some ther's been a workaround. It seems this infamous 3 cell battery performance is also a software/BIOS problem. Which takes me back to the 3 cell battery problem.
While it is very annoying, and I'd like nothing more than to see it fixed, in the end, it's not such a big deal. I mean, if I know I'm gonna be plugged-in most of the time anyway, I'll just take the lighter 3 cell battery and the power brick (the charger truly is a BRICK). On the other hand, if I'm going to use the laptop on battery power, I'll be sure to take the larger and heavier 6 cell battery with me. Don't get me wrong, of course the 3 cell battery SHOULD work with no compromise in performance, but most of the time I know whether I'm gonna be plugged-in or not, and can choose the battery accordingly.

 

I see where you are coming from. When I bought this I looked at price/performance and did not find anything similar from the competition. This wait is killing me. Another week to have this thing at my door. This is my first Asus laptop and it is normal to have some doubts. I had Acer and Fujitsu all my life and they did their job. My Amilo 12.1 inch 1520Si worked flawlessly for 3 years when I noticed that the light sensor broke . Other than that, it still works like when I bought it, except the battery . It is normal to expect the same from this one, considering it is better built, better components, etc. Speaking of the charger, thanks for reminding me. I have to buy an adapter to convert US outlet to European one . The reason I ordered if from the States was the price, keyboard and OS language. In my area if you are lucky to find one of these things, you get it qwertz/azerty which is horrible. No pun intended to those using them . Back to the charger, shame they don't offer some fancy universal gizmo that fits in every outlet . If the problems are software, then I will follow the tons of tutorials here. Software can be solved with your laptop on your lap. Hardware, that is a different question. As soon as I get it, if someone wants to touch it, they will have to kill me first .


L.E: Did anyone use CS3 on this laptop? I do that every now and then and I was wondering how this laptop behaves with workloads from Photoshop CS3.

 

I've used CS3 on it for about a week before I had to return it for service (fingerprint-reader stopped working). No problems as far as I could see, thanks to a speedy CPU and enough RAM.

 

Sorry to hear that you had a problem with it. I hope mine won't have that issue. It would be a pity for me to get the laptop and a week later to send it to Asus someplace to get the thing fixed. Thanks for the CS3 input. How do HD rips play on it? Which NVIDIA drivers do you recommend? I have a couple 720p rips on my PC and also 1080p. Will they be laggy? I am using CoreAVC and it helps a lot if you don't have a quad core with 20 million gagillion rams .


L.E: I use something like this with my Amilo . Will it be compatible with the U6Sg or I need to get an adapter .

 

Got word from Asus yesterday that ASUS WILL UPGRADE MY 3 CELL BATTERY TO A 6 CELL! Pity I have to send in the 3 cell in return - it would've been a nice battery for the times I know I will be plugged in. The fact that I now have around six hours of 100 % performance battery power (two 6 cell batteries) in my disposal more than makes up for it, though.

I've also CS3, but I haven't really used it much yet, apart from Acrobat. And with Acrobat I had one of the most frustrating experiences with this laptop:
within seconds of commenting a pdf-file, Acrobat would freeze for ~5 minutes, the a balloon in the task bar would pop up saying "Data Execution Prevention had to close Acrobat 8.1 to protect my computer", or something to that effect. After that, however, Acrobat would NOT close, rather it stayed open and I could continue working & commenting the pdf-file with no further drama. This would recur everytime I first open and comment a file. As I'm currently reviewing a lot of scientific papers for my master's thesis, this was really causing me to have a ****-stroke (a Finninsh saying ).
The issue was finally solved by E.B.E., my hero, who suggested running Acrobat with admin rights. Now I have to put up with UAC asking for confirmation everytime I open Acrobat, but that's nothing compared to the alternative. And yes, I know I can turn off UAC, but I don't want to.

 

Wishmaker: I don't have any HD clips so I can't comment on that. I would think the specs should be adequate to run even 1080p without problems, but this is just an educated guess.

The U6 has only ExpressCard slot, so I don't think the PCMCIA souncard will fit. Can anyone confirm?

 

They all look good on paper but then in real life they don't perform sometimes . In any case, this is a laptop for work and not gaming, hardcore encoding, etc. Regarding the Audigy ZS Notebook, it would be a shame not to be able to use it . I haven't met an onboard to sound properly . Seeing I already have that PCMCIA card, I said why not put in on this thing . So they changed your sexy battery for a 6 cell one. I would not mind having two 6 cell ones because as you say battery life is important. I will probably order a 9 cell one later on. Like that I am all set . Oh, yeah, I need to get one of those cooling thingiemabobs, the ones you plug in your USB port .

 

Hi all, I just had to register to give some more info.

I'm in Taipei right now (home of asus) and just went to a local computer mall (NOVA) and asked some questions. Turns out that all new U6SG's being sold do NOT come with the 3cell battery, and it has been discontinued. They just come with the 6cell. This was due to customer complaints(I belive). 9cell is about 170$ extra. Oh, and here is why you should buy in taipei.

Taiwan spec is
2.5ghz, 4gbram, 250gbhdd, gf 9300m, wireless N, BT2.0+, and 3.5g HSDPA , vista buisness (i think)

All for.. $1600 CAD/USD

If you guys have any other questions for the local guys in Taipei, let me know!

 

I hope that is not the case with my order. When I placed it on EXcaliberPC the laptop was offered with two batteries. On the Asus website they advertised it with two. If my U6 has one battery and not two, I will never buy Asus again, and will talk to Asus Europe. The system you presented is very interesting unfortunately some of us do not have access to goodies like that. At the end of the day, my U6sg-A1 is more than ample .

 

That same spec, except for only 3 gb ram, can be had in Finland for around 1600 eur. I paid around 1300 eur for my T8100, 2 Gb, and I'm pretty satisfied with the value, as well as the performance. Add to that that I'm even now connected to internet via my bluetooth 3G phone, so I don't even need the HSDPA modem. If I didn't have it though, the HSDPA would've probably been the single most important reason for me to grab the higher spec U6.

Well... this is most interesting. So they've stopped offering the 3 cell with the U6Sg... I guess that indicates they might not be able to fix the performance issue with a simple BIOS update. Very interesting, thanks for the info Terru.

EDIT: Terru, you wouldn't happen to have information whether the optional 9 cell battery for the U6Sg is the same as that for the U6S? I'm interested because a local computer store is offering a U6S 9 cell battery, but I'm not sure whether it will work with my U6Sg...

 

I'll drop by the store soon, and see what the guys have to say. I'll also shop around, see if I can barter for a better price than 1600cad/usd. That was a pretty hasty offer on their part, I'm sure I can find better!

Also, how is your U6SG? I'm highly tempted to buy one... Mobile, powerfull, lots of extras... Only drawback seems to be battery life. What is yours like with the 6cell?

 

Thanks Terru, I really appreciate it!

Well, I really do like mine. I think it strikes a nice balance between performance and portability, as well as value for money (after all, the build quality and style are very good). I think it's actually quite a bargain, with all the extras. However, it all comes down to what you're looking for. It can be a bit too heavy and big (thick) for an ultraportable, and the battery life isn't something to write home about. However, the performance to weight/size ratio is quite exceptional, and if that's what you're looking for, then go for it, by all means.

I'm getting up to 3h30m of battery life out of the 6 cell, but that's the absolute maximum (no wireless, screen brightness way down, very light use). For example, today I got around 2h30m with 3G internet access over bluetooth on all the time, reading pdf-documents plus some web surfing. Email and SSH clients were also running, brightness 50 %, Power4Gear set to QuietOffice power plan. Also, Aero and sidebar were turned off.

 

The 9 cell for the U6S should definitely work for the -Sg model.... all that changed were a couple of internal components so it should be the exact same chassis. If you're nervous, take your notebook down there and ask if they'll pull one out of the box and plug it in.

 

It has been a week and my laptop is not here yet . Last info on the USPS website is dated 27th of May .

 

I'll bet it is in customs,....

 

It would not kill them to write a small sentence on the USPS website that the package has been sent to Europe. For me the package is still in SAN JOSE, CA 95101. It was there since the 27th. Ordered on the 23rd, waited a weekend +2 days for an update and now 4 days later nothing.

 

OK, thanks! At some point, I may consider adding a 9 cell to my collection of batteries

 

You are not the only one thinking of doing that. What is the best price on one of those?

 

Has anyone used the U6 with a docking station. How well does it work? I see a docking station in the Asus marketing materials but do not know where to purchase it from.

Also, I am not sure if I should buy the U6 or the U3 or the Portable One 13" one. Has anyone cross shopped these machines and have any recommendations. The U6 has everything I need except the screen might be too small relative to the dimensions of the machine (as demonstrated by the wide bezel). My needs are a fast machine but light and preferably the largest screen that will fit within its footprint. Any ideas?

I like the Dell XPS 13" also but my apprehension is the touchpad on all new Dell and most other norebooks built since about 2005. In my opinion these new touch pads are too "floaty" and inaccurate with a small movement of the cursor occuring even after one stops moving their finger on the pad. Dell was the first manufacturer I started experincing this with but then I have seen it on pretty much every other manufacturere except Asus and the Lenovo Thinkpads. Has anyone else noticed the same?

 

I might be wrong on this one but the U6 does not have a special port for a docking station (I still have to recieve the Laptop but in the specs sheet nothing is mentioned about a dock port). If by docking station you mean the USB ones, then the U6 will perform according to the bandwidth the port gives it. I bought one of those for my Amilo Si with USB 2.0 and it behaved poorly. I could not print/work in CS3 and do Web because it was very laggy. I could see on my 19inch LCD that the usb docking station was affecting performance because windows would take a long time to open basic things like windows explorer, start menu. On top of that, the mouse would move like a powerpoint slideshow. I had to send it back to get a refund because USB cannot cope with my needs. I paid 250 euros 2 years ago on it!!!I also have a 15 inch Acer with a proper docking port and that thing works flawlessly. As soon as you dock it, no lag, works in real time and it does not make you want to shoot your kids like the USB ones .

 

This is where I see the dock which is part of the "Ultimate Package" which also includes the BlueRay drive. Even though this is shown for the Asus Lambo VX3, it should theoretically work for the U6 because that is the same machine as the U6:

http://www.uniqueinfotech.com.au/asus-lamborghini-notebook-yellow-p-6874.html

Blu-ray enabled (Ultimate package)
The VX3 is the premier Blu-ray Disc™-enabled PC, with the ability to play, record, and re-write Blu-ray Disc™ media13 With Blu-ray Disc capabilities, you can enjoy stunning HD video in crystal-clear, flicker-free, mind-blowing resolution or record 25-50GB of video, pictures or data to a single Blu-ray Disc media - that’s five times the capacity of standard DVDs.

Exclusive Power Station (Ultimate package)
The VX3 accommodates the need for a quick connection of peripherals, power and communication devices. Whether at home or in the office, it offers advanced practicality and time saved when leaving and returning to the desk

 

Wishmaker: the only place I've seen the 9 cell is a Finnish e-tailer verkkokauppa.com, and they have it for 161 eur.

Also, I can confirm that the U6 does not have a dedicated docking port. The VX3 docking station seems to be using a docking port underneath the VX3 (judging by a picture on the website fq1 posted), but there is definately no such port in the U6Sg.

 

That is a 5000$ laptop. You would expect it to stand out . The U6SG is close to 1/4 of that price .

 

I called USPS in the states. After fiddling 10 minutes with some stupid answering machine I found out that there is no info on my package and I was advised to call back in 5 business days. WTF???

 

Where do you see the VX3 for $5000??
It's $3100 USD at excaliberpc...

 

Sorry to hear that. I hope they find your package, pronto! Don't they have online tracking systems? No info there either? Have you paid for the laptop already? Well, I do think that if one the bigger delivery businesses misplace a packet, they will have insurance to make up for the damages. You'll get your U6 much faster though if they find your package.

 

Hi, aBE. Regarding the replacement - what did you do to achieve this? All I've got was this lousy phone call from that Asus' helpdesk-guy..... It's a pity if they won't try to fix the 3 cell-issue - I want the thing to me mobile as well.....

 

If you click on the link provided by the user who showed us the docking station you will see the price.

 

I pray they did not lose it. June 03 : still the same info from May 27th. My laptop is in San Jose .

 

After a few weeks with the U6, I called local Asus support about the bad performance with the 3 cell. They suggested a reinstallation of Windows, and an update to the BIOS. After these didn't help, the Asus rep I talked to (at that time, he hadn't heard about this kind of problem before) advised me to RMA my U6, so I did. After a few weeks in Holland, where they replaced the battery, I got back my U6. The performance w/ the 3 cell was still the same, so I called Asus, again. I told them that I had bought the laptop with 2 batteries, and that there was no indication of reduced performance with the 3 cell in their marketing materials, in there website, or indeed anywhere else to be found. So, I demanded a second battery that would work 100 %, be it a 3, 6 or a 9 cell (or if that's not possible, a partial refund, or break the deal altogether). The Asus rep had to contact someone at Holland (I think), and after a few days they called me back and said that they will replace my 3 cell battery with a 6 cell.

I suggest you tell them that there has been a serious shortcoming in their part, as there has been no information available concerning the low performance of the 3 cell battery at the time of purchase. The performance of the laptop with the 3 cell battery isn't what one should expect, based on the information Asus has given out on the specs of the laptop, and so they must fix this problem. If they choose to fix it by replacing the 3 cell battery with a 6 cell one, or by giving you a partial refund etc., is up to them (and you).

The bottom line is, that there is a flaw in the product you bought (the product does not function as claimed by the manufacturer prior to purchase), and you are entitled to have it fixed at the expense of the manufacturer (or possibly the reseller, depending on what the laws are in your country).

A small tip, which you probably know, but here goes: when you speak to the Asus rep, be firm, but be polite. It doesn't help your case if you get mad, but it does help if you know your rights and don't take "no" for an answer

Hope this helps and you can convince them to fix the problem!

 

Thank you! I'll get in touch with them to see what happens next.

 

Great, if my laptop arrives, it will have problems. Lovely .

 

Not sure if this will help your anxiety, but since you're overseas you might not be familiar with how USPS tracking works, which is quite annoying. The US Postal Service only updates their tracking when the package hits the next major stop along the way and the tag is transmitted from the receiving location, and the entire system is updated at most once daily - it's not like UPS, FedEx or DHL who let you follow it every single step of its journey and track in real time. The last major stop where it was scanned would have been San Jose; the next time the package shows up in the system will probably be when it gets to it's destination country, and arrives at one of their partners distribution hubs.

On a side note, why on earth did Excaliber ship something that expensive to you via US domestic mail carrier (and it sounds like regular delivery too) rather than traceable, reliable shipping from one of the international carriers above? It's likely more expensive, sure, but even FedEx's slowest international shipping option would have placed it at your doorstep within a week of shipment. I don't think there's any reason yet to fear that the package is missing (just slowly making its way through the world of USPS international mail, which could mean it's on a boat for all we know), but I hope Excaliber also insured the package for its value just in case.... Excaliber should also be able to check with USPS and get an estimate for transit time on whatever shipping option they used for you (or you might be able to work this out looking at USPS' website); if via international surface delivery rather than airmail, I'm guessing probably a couple of weeks minimum.

 

Maybe you should contact Asus in advance, so that when your laptop finally arrives, you'll have an additional 6 cell battery ready and waiting