~Asus F9S Chilling Lounge~

Hello, everyone. I'm one of the first few people who bought F9S on NBR (at least one of the first few who bought and told everyone). So far after using it for about 1 week, I'm very happy with my choice.
It's light and small enough to be carried between college and home, and powerful enough to take down any of the advanced softwares out there.
I'm just curious what one feature of the F9S people saw that compelled them to buy it. Post it here! And if anyone has a question about the F9S, please post it here, and any of the F9S owners will gladly answer it.

Here's why I bought it: the dedicated GPU.

 

My F9S replaces my veteran M5Np. My baby rolled off the line in October 2007, and is now in my hands.

Only complaint I have so far: preloaded Vista (why, Microsoft? Asus you *&$( could've at least make installing XP easier by providing the drivers. Heck you did it for the Eee...)

And it is a bit heavier than my M5. But with that much more toys loaded on board, I'm not complaining.

 

Small size, fast processor, fingerprint, dedicated dx10 video card, and other features that virtually no other 12.1" laptop has.

 

does the battery sticking out bother some of you guys? how much would the 3/4 cell battery that is flush with the body?

 

Generally, no matter who you ask, they'd usu. prefer not having the battery stick out, as opposed to having it stick out. You'll get use to it. The only thing that you should do is have caution if you're holding the notebook from the battery end.

 

I barely notice it. I'm looking at it from the back right now, and it kind of goes with the notebook. Doesn't look that odd. Of course, I'd rather have it not stick out, but its not too bad as is.

 

One thing that annoys me is that if you're using this notebook on a table, and if someone lightly bumps into the table, the lid of the notebook will shake....it needs to be sturdier!!

 

What is the battery life , heat and fan noise like.
I have a 1.5 year old Fujitsu S6240 Which is great except since i replaced the hard drive to 160gb from 40 gb,the fan is always on and it is irritating the hell out of me.

Trying to decide between F9S ,LENOVO V200( 2 USER REVIEWS ON CNET GAVE IT A 1/10=ABYSMAL) and the SONY SZ.

 

Battery life sucks, around 2 - 2.5 hours. The fan is not noticeable even when it is on, but the heat is killer. I think if my hand was too close to the vent on the left side of the notebook, I would actually burn my skin. But, its not like that all the time, only when you start taxing it.

 

This is what I wrote in my review regarding heat and noise:

And one of the biggest disappointments to me was the battery life--only about 2 hours with the wireless on, and about 2.5-3.0 hours with wireless off and brightness set to 10%

 

hi all,

have owned the lappy for about a month half now. so far so good, did u guys notice that the build isnt that great? keyboard flex increases as u go towards the right and bottom right laptop can be 'squeezed' and creaks.

but apart from that i think its a decent laptop. was wondering what kind of tweaks u guys did, like wat pre-installed softwares did u remove? am hoping to speed up the boot up process, it is pretty quick to get into vista but seems to run for a couple of mins loading up the startup stuffs..

 

well, I got rid of the norton anti-virus. Also, I'm going to buy a stick of 1 GB RAM to max it out to 2 GBs. Also, I'd highly recommend getting a cooling pad, as that will increase the notebook's performance as well as its life.
Yeah, I'd agree that the notebook uses cheap plastic. It seems that it can be easily pulled apart. But with the Asus 2-year extendable warranty, you can't go wrong.

 

I have the F9Dc-A1, same chassis, basically the F9S's older AMD twin brother. The only place I noticed any flex was the area around the power button. Apparently the short battery life isn't limited to AMD, I manage only 2-2.5hrs as well. Even the temps are spot-on too, ~50C idle and up to 80C full throttle! I've owned it for about a month and a half already, it runs in power saver mode 95% of the time so heat & fan noise has been a non-issue.

 

No, I'm used to the 9-cell on my M5.

I wonder if there's a 9-cell for the F9? I suppose the part number should be A33-F9.

 

i agree. i was playing around with the demo at work and it did not feel sturdy at all. at least i get half off on the exteneded warranties at work so if it breaks i get a new one.

 

My full F9S review with benchmarks has been posted
Please look at the posts for that thread to see the corrections.

 

i like it alot. i have no complaints about quality. the battery life in vista is the same as any other model with a 6 cell. people should keep in mind the batt life in xp over vista is a good 30% longer. my only issue is that it is not much smaller or lighter then w7s which is 13.3". that make a w7 more desirable at about the same price

 

Hey, its my seller! Have you seen the review?
Keep in mind that for an ultra portable, its a bit big and this allows for a bigger keyboard. And also, the bigger border around the screen reinforces security for it.

 

i read it. that was my whole point. they could have and should have made is smaller. i am typing on an m5n. its the best 12" they every made. granted its not wide but the border on the screen is less then half an inch. the border on the full size keyboard is less then a quarter inch. it is 2.7lbs and it is truly an ultraportable. the f9s (yes it has a 6 cell which is nice) coms in at just over 4 lbs.

 

Actually, I think it adds character to the bland backside of a notebook (on most notebooks anyhow). So long as it doesn't stick out of the bottom like the Sony 9 cells, and HP 12 cells...The 3 cell or 4 cell battery will get like 1-1.5 hours, hence I wouldn't recommend it at all.

As for the size not being any smaller than the W7: thats why I picked the W7 instead. Its got better build than the F9, isn't any larger, has a bigger screen and costs the same. Yes, the webcam is fixed and doesn't rotate, and yes, the F9S has some better specs (faster cpu, larger hard drive, no built in memory), and the HDMI port would be a nice addition, but for me, those didn't take as high a priority as the screen (same res, I know, but its still bigger) and better build. I think I would have been equally happy with the F9S as well, but I like the W7. Very nice notebook.

 

Is anybody adventurous enough to take apart the machine yet? I'm really interested to know if the machine comes standard with 3 or 2 antennas...

 

OK, now answering my own question: no, I do not have the 3rd antenna. There are 3 antennas, 1 for bluetooth and 2 for 3945.

Also the Mini PCI-E is completely inaccessible. It's located on the underside of the machine, right next to the memory in the covered area.

 

really?!
I haven't taken apart the machine yet...I'm waiting for my RAM to come in on Monday so that I can take it apart and put in a new stick (after I find a screw drive :/)
I'll post up new benchmarks with the extra gig for ram.

 

Flip the machine, see the label that says Asus F9S Notebook PC? it's right under there. That means if you want to get to the card, you need to completely remove the bottom cover. That said, you need to remove the heatsink to the CPU before you can get to that, where there's a sticker that says "warranty void if removed", so I didn't go on.

 

I just installed a stick of GB ram to max out the notebook to 2 GBs. I'll post up the new benchmarks later next week.

 

f9s max ram is 4gb not 2gb

 

4GB?
On the Asus websites and a few others I have seen, It said that it maxes at 2GB

 

look at the video i posted. clearly shows 2 slots. even if it had 1 slot it would max out at 2.5gb. it does support 4gb

 

Agree with you about the 4GB...as long as there is no BIOS limitation to 2GB, there is no reason why it shouldn't support 4GB...

But..this statement makes no sense to me. There is no onboard RAM on the F9S like on other Asus laptops...so how would one slot enable 2.5GB max? Have they started making 2.5GB RAM sticks?

 

i was not saying f9s has 1 slot. i was comparing it to the w7s which does have one open slot and 512mb soldered onboard. f9s DOES support 4gb

 

Just found out... turns out our machines have ThinkLight!

Press Fn + B turns on the light on the camera, press it again to turn it off. Rotate the camera to point at the keyboard, there. Keyboard Light

 

Awesome, so thats what the incredibly bright light (that I couldn't figure out how to turn off) was...

Thanks!

 

about upgrading the ram to 4gb, it won't work for windows xp (2gb max), with the vista that it came with its max ram is 3 gb, u need a 64-bit vista to be able to upgrade to 4 gb.

by the way, has anyone actually battery life of the f9s by using the laptop until it runs out of juice, since i might to do gaming on this laptop, on high brightness, how much battery-life can u get?

 

Guys i tried to run the battery down to 23% and charge it back again.. on 100% i unplugged it.. it showed 2hours and 30 minutes ofcourse with power saving options. i did not let the battery drainout since this might damage the Li-ON battery. If there are real time benchmarks or guides it might surely help.

Thanks,

 

really, that damages the battery, heh heh oops. one time me and my friend went on a tripp 22 hrs to wiinpeg from toronto (by car), and since he's got a car recharger we were able to play for a long time, but it always get umplug and well... the battery kept dying

 

Actually for Li-Ion batteries, you should maintain a bit of charge before charging. It's actually bad to run Li-Ion batteries completely flat before charging.

 

yea, its kinda really s*ks when you know that you have for a laptop for 1200 bucks (EUR) and still the system doesnt have a powerful battery to run it for even 2:30 hrs. I would need to know how to streatch the battery life without damaging the battery life. I have seen all battery calibration guides, one across the other is always contradicting. I would need someone from the battery manufacturing company or someone from Asustek labs to explain to everyone about how to maintain and use the maximum juice out of the battery we have.

Funny, Interesting but true!! damn! i guess we should have solar powered cells in our laptop.This might be expensive but would be worth the money!

 

Anyone attempt to reseat the processor to bring the temps down? Runs too hot for my taste but I always seem to be drawn to the 13" and under laptops in stores. Yesterday it was this one.

 

doing that will break the warranty seal and void your warranty. reseating the cpu will do absolutely nothing. adding arctic silver will do nothing also

 

i was wondering (kinda of a newb question, but...) would having more ram suck more battery life or stay the same? and what's the 2P for after the f9s-b1?

 

It could indicate 2 Gig RAM which comes with the machine...i have this config.. seems to be good..

 

More RAM will not suck significantly more power (there will be some difference of course but RAM is not a main consumer I think).

arunragavan, on tips to maximize batt life... there's not much you can do except turn off bluetooth and wireless if you're not using them, turn down brightness as low as possible but still readable, put the CPU and GPU in power-saving modes (making sure the CPU always stays at its lowest speed, you can use for instance RMClock to do that, Power4Gear settings in Vista are very "fuzzy", they are given in percent of the max speed and I'm not comfortable with that).

For older CPUs I would also have recommended undervolting but that won't do anything for Core 2 Duos since the min voltage is locked in the hardware.

Some people also disable (from Device Manager) hardware that they don't use such as the optical drive, the webcam, and the USB controller, and that seems to help a bit, but not more than a few minutes. I would say you can do this, but be careful with what you turn off. (if you never use webcam it's safe to turn it off for instance)

 

thnx for the replys, so more ram would only take off 5 mins tops right? and for the 2P, shouldn't the P be a R not a P like R for RAM

 

Yeah, at most on the order of minutes is a good estimate.

What's with the 2P? the model identifier you mean? That ID doesn't have to directly represent anything in the internal configuration (like the F8 is a 14", there's no 14 in the name...)

 

can someone please post their windows experience score?
just want to know how much the 8400M is pumping out compared to the 8400M GS in the hp pavillion
if someone has 3dmark scores too would be a bonus

or even comparing to the 9300M in the new F9sg range

 

Windows Experience score is something around 3.0 for me as for the display card. It is really pathetic.. but i can live with it as i am not a game freak...since 3.0 is the lowest score..my total rating is also 3.0!

 

Of of topic: do u listen to lounge music for chilling in this lounge hehehehe

 

Uh... you can't expect more from a 12" notebook. Also in another thread you were concerned about battery life -- if the GPU were more powerful (besides other problems) batt life would be even worse. If it were integrated on the other hand... it might be quite a bit better.

You can't have both...

 

i've read that ur suspose to uninstall live update and other pre-install software, but can't find the thread anymore, can anyone tell me what they r?

 

Check my signature, or better yet, the ASUS Info Booth (1st sticky).