~F3sv Owner's Lounge~

All of the components run around ~50*C max, usually 55. But, my Nvidia gpu runs about 60*C at idle. while running CS:S stress test- I recieved 69*C. I dont think that is too hot. i think around ~70*C would be the average for gaming although I have not done extensive testing for errors, bsods, n such. I used HW monitor to get a 72*C reading for my gpu, then GPU-Z told me that I was getting 69*C. When I press F2 at start up, I dont get any options for Fans, memory, or anything like that. I ran the NB ASUS probe and it said that my fans and everything was running correctly.. I am not sure how accurate that thing is- But i have seen other people with this heat from the right side of the laptop.. not really sure how much I should worry about it.

 

those temps are the same as mine (after a few hours of gaming my GPU reaches 90*C, ive never seen it go any hotter than 93, but that was when i overclocked it)

 

through several hours of gaming- i have come across no nvl bsods or any real errors yet. thanks asus!

 

Greetings fellow F3SV owners! I'm close to approaching one year since buying this laptop and I have to say it is great! I haven't had any major problems with it at all!

But, just a question about the nvidia drivers from laptopvideo2go. Has anybody tried the newer driver versions such as v174.74 or 174.93? I've been browsing about them and been reading a lot of positive comments about it but I haven't seen any comments directly related to the 8600M GS. Also, I've tried updating my driver before from laptopvideo2go and my nvidia control panel disappears. Is this suppose to happen? Any input would be great. Thanks!

 

I'm currently using the v163.75 drivers. When that series gets updated, I usually upgrade. I'm more for a stable system than gaming speed.

 

In all honesty I can install drivers in my sleep after all of the horror I have been through with this laptop- After RMA and a new MOBO it works great!

I have tried the 174.74 driver. I wanted to get better performance..Trying drivers is truly trial and error. every driver that I have tried works correctly and installs without a pain.

I recommend using 169.04, 158.45, 169.25, the stock driver ( 101.38 ). 158.45 caused some stuttering in Gears of War- installed 169.04 and the stutter was gone, flawless gameplay at High settings 1280x800 res, lots of fun. Same effect with Bioshock and Call of duty 4(same res, high textures, 2x aa, . 158.45 is an older driver so it doesnt work as well with newer games. I havent tried alot of the 17x.xx series since I got this thing back from RMA. 173.80 looks good and so does 171.16. ALL of this performance comes WITHOUT over clocking- 8600m gs isnt overly crippled.

Basically try whatever you want- as long as functions work (ie no RunDLL32 errors on boot), everything basically boils down to FPS, overall performance (WEI and/or 3Dmarks), and the introduction of new graphics cards..

 

just got (or noticed) a crack in the bottom right corner of my keyboard (just below the right arrow key there)

hope this machine doesnt keep cracking everywhere

 

Btw, does anyone know of a good Monitor/tv that I could use for this laptop? I need one for college That I can play console games, watch cable, and use as a monitor. Perferably not huge, has about 5ms response time.. The one earlier in this big post looked really nice, but i dont know anything about it. Could anyone help?

 

Hey, thanks for the help guys! I'm gonna take your advice, Aengland, and just try out the various drivers you have recommended to see which one is right for me.

 

Hi all!
I have also an Asus F3SV. I'm running Vista Ultimate and I installed 4 Gig memory in it. It's giving 3 gig available so I guess thats' pretty normal.

For the Geforce 8600 GS I'm running the latest official drivers from the ASUS site.

I read somewhere on this forum that you could share out more memory RAM to be used by the graphics card? How can you do that? I have looked in the BIOS but I haven't found anything...

 

Btw, I've been playing assassins creed on it lately. I'm not running on the Highest settings, but I still have the shadows turned on. My framerate drops to around 13-14 in the large open areas when you are horseriding but it's not to bad in the cities (above 20 fps).

I haven't tried overclocking or any custom drivers though. I use this PC for my work and running 3dsmax, and I'm a little scared of tampering too much. Has anyone else tried that game? What framerates do you get?

 

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know if it is possible to upgrade the Asus F3Sv to the new 45nm Nehalem processors?
They have all the right specs, but need to be supported by BIOS in order to work. I'm thinking of going from an Intel T7100 (which was stock for my model, and very slow) to T9500 running at 2.60GHz.

Have anyone tried using any new CPU in the Asus F3Sv?

 

Be aware you'd be voiding the warranty.

I don't know about the microcode. indeed the only way to know for sure is if someone tried it.

 

G'day all,

Firstly my disclaimer is that I can follow instructions perfectly but really don't have a decent idea about the hardware of computers.

Never had a problem with my baby (had it for six months tomorrow) until today when the following problem happened:

I turn on my notebook, the Asus logo and sound comes up but then it reboots itself automatically.

I've done a bit of searching across the net today for a solution and most seem to suggest a change of BIOS and/or recovery from DVD. I think I am meant to do the latter first, so I have tried it but come to the screen where it has the following options:

- Recover Windows to first partition only
- Recover Windows to entire HD
- Recover Windows to entire HD with 2 partition

I am not sure of the consequences of these and do not want to lose what I have on my hard drives.

I realise this is not the best place to post but I am desperate and would like a hand ASAP. I don't think this is a major problem for anyone in the know.

Cheers

 

Sounds like you have been hit by the same problem I had some months ago. Probably has to do with the Auto updates from Microsoft. Here are a couple of thread links that may help you. I had to use the recovery disc , but lost all files.

forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3044328

forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3208310

Good Luck
Laxpacman

 

I suggest recover to 1st partition only. That will destroy ALL the data on the 1st (Windows) partition, so be sure to backup any of that data that you want, first.

Check the ASUS_FAQ in the Info Booth (sig) for how to recovery.
Check my Tips and Tricks for ways to backup your data.

 

Has anyone else experienced this same issue with their F3SV?

Randomly this will happen:

Laptop is off (AC unit connected to the wall)
I'll power the laptop on.
Halfway through the booting of WinXP, the system will freeze.
Restarting does not help as it will still freeze at the same spot.
Trying to boot into safe mode fails also.

2 Solutions:

1) Turn off system, unplug AC adapter from wall and use battery power only.
System will boot up fine.
2) Turn off system, remove the battery, plug AC power back in. System boots up fine.

I can't seem to recreate the problem, but it does occasionally occur.

 

The problem is strange and it's impossible to say for sure what is the cause. But two things come to mind:
a) Some sort of hardware or firmware (BIOS) glitch. The fact that even safe mode freezes suggests this is more likely the case, rather than ACPI drivers.
b) ACPI glitch. I say this because changing the power source (batt versus AC) removes the problem. You could try reinstalling the ACPI drivers, who knows...

If you check the error logs in XP, does it record that freeze? What does it say about it?

 

I checked the logs and it came up empty. Yeah I thought it might've been a BIOS problem at first too. It happened with the 207s. I updated it to 208 and it happened again.

I wiped the machine after I went to the 208s and it still happened so I don't think it is an ACPI software glitch. When I get back to the US I'll probably call up Asus Support and see if they know what is up.

 

Hmmm I am starting further question myself about the build quality of this unit, I mean don't get me wrong the performance is above my expectations but later today my laptop was in my bag and the bag fell of a chair. Never thought there would be any damage until I made a closer inspection and noticed that the faceplate holding the screen popped out of place. It was an easy fix (just push it back in) but if such a small fall could do that much damage well.........I'll let your imagination do the rest . So just want to let you know be careful with it, then again don't drop it in the first place!

 

Ive just had a replacement notebook from Asus and noticed that the vista home premium os is 32bit..

Can anyone confirm that theirs is 32 or 64 bit version,. as im sure the last notebook i had was 64bit vista version.

If others are 64 bit, does the recovery disc give an option of 32 or 64bit.

 

they should all come with 32bit OS.

 

no, recovery disc does not have an option. 32 and 64 is totally different

they had their own set of cd keys

also, most drivers cannot run in 64. and 32 can only support 3GB of ram / 64 can take more than 3GB of ram

64 bits is most likely for server.

 

Thanks for the above, does your version of F3SV come with tv tuner, as the UK model say it does in the specs, im trying to find FRench specs for mine. I just found this converted by google from french to english and it says that it does have a tv tuner, although theres no slot for aerial on mine.

http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...lt&prev=/search?q=asus+f3sv-ap250c&hl=en&sa=G

Mine also says 1 year warranty sticker on bottom of laptop, compared to 2 yrs on the above spec file from french site.

???????confused.

since editing this i found this on asus french site translated.
http://france.asus.com/search.aspx?searchitem=1&searchkey=f3sv

for the tv tuner
The availability of this option can vary according to the regions.

 

no, north america model doesnt come with the orange tv plug to connect to a cable.

if u look to the right side of the laptop, u will see a black big hole, or a orange hole.

if u see a orange hole, which mean u got the tv card build-in.

if u see a big black hole, which u dont have the tv card build-in.

 

As to 1 year, you should resolve that issue. I.e., if the original notebook had 2years, make sure that the new one also has 2 years.

AFAIK all ASUS come with 32 bit only.

Edit: sorry, I was incorrect, some models come with 64-bit Vista nowadays... like the G1Sn.

 

Where would I find Windows XP drivers for the F3sv?

I went to Asus' site and Drivers support page, but there wasn't anything under the WinXP option.

Any ideas please? Thanks.

 

Could someone tell me the "mAh" on their battery.

Had the battery just replaced with a 4800mAh, and the life is under 2 hours, where as the original *when it wasn't broken* was about 2:25.

Thanks

 

follow the guide in my sig, they are in there

 

I am having a problem with the F3SVx1. Its 9 months old and has been running fine till now. The last couple days it as running slow in doing the usuall tasks. During gaming(wow) I noticed freezing and just gittering I never saw before. Also the fan was on very high which was never the case whil playing wow. ON occasion I will take off the back whihc is covering the cpu and gpu and blow a fan over it to cool it down. I use an LCD and keyboard. It ran fine. I have been using the laptop with the cover on for about 2 weeks now. I assumed there was dust buildup so I tok off the heatsink and cleared the dust. Also while I had it open I applied some Artic Silver to both CPU and GPU heatsinks. Once I completed this I booted up with everything together and I got massive artifacts. It would freeze up about the time the desktop would load. I was running Vista. I restored to XP and It ran fine. Then I installed WoW and when the login screen came up I got the same massive artifacts. So I restored to XP agian and Its fine. What did I do to mess it up. I was very careful. What do you all think?

 

Artifacts signifies an unstable system and an unstable system can be caused by many factors. Given that you recently added AS5 to your CPU/GPU, I would double check to see if the paste was correctly applied. Check out the instructions for applying AS5 below
http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_intel_dual_wcap.pdf

applying too much AS5 may have a negative effect on your system.

Secondly, have you tried using different/newer graphics drivers? You can download them from laptopvideo2go.com.

 

It is possible I added to much AT5. So I removed it. I also booted in Safe mode and cleaned all the drivers and installed new drivers, the latest. I was stilling having the same problems. I was thinking maybe a ram stick failed. So I removed 1 at a time and now the computer wont boot up. The lights come on for about 5 seconds and then it shuts off. Sometimes it tries to turn on again. Nothing appears on the screen. I purchased two sticks of ram from newegg when i bought the laptop. I tested to see if one was broken.I will try out the stock 1gb it came with. Also, I have overclocked sometimes. Maybe for a week on and off. The week the issue started to appear it was not overclocked. Thanks for you reply.

 

If you system won't boot or if the lights come on for a few seconds then shuts off, then it is most probably the improper placement of your hardware. This has happened to me many times. Try resetting your CPU, GPU and ram. Make sure all connections are properly/tightly secured.

 

What do you mean by reset? If you mean take it out and replace it I have done that with the ram and cpu. But the gpu as far as i can see is not removable.

 

Let me clearify, the lights that come on are the one by the mousepad. The light which represent cpu/hdd activity( i think thats what they are) do not come on. I did take out the cpu and blew on the cpu and the docket. Noe the lights by the mousepad stay on, the hdd sounds like its on.
When the computer did work it was fine. When I started Wow I noteced the artifacts and I restarted the compupter. Whild it was re booting the splash screen showed artifacts so I thought ok, no games. Then I restored the computer to xp. It worked fine. Then when I did some heavy load such as installing office 08 and streaming video the computer froze up and I took out the cpu, blew on it, checked the gpu, cleaned some more ATC5 on it. Thats what happened before it didnt even turn on. Maybe its the gpu since the lights are on but no picture? Shouldnt it boot to the BIOS if the ram is bad, so it cant be the ram. Im a computer guy but not so good with laptops. Agian thank you for your reply and suggestions.

 

bad ram wont allow it to get to bios either, it could be the ram but to me it sounds like you have a bad GPU with artifacts on the splash screen.

 

Would 8GB RAM get recognized? People are arguing about 8GB RAM and Intel 965 chipset ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=296968 and http://forum.notebookreview.com/archive/index.php/t-226666.html). I am curious if anyone tried this with Asus F3Sv or knows for sure what the deal is with this model.

 

Ok so is there a way to fix my problem? I dont have a warrenty, meaning I did not buy one when I bought the laptop off newegg. I read there is a two year warrenty though. Are you thinking my gpu is bad?

 

8GB? what do you need 8GB for? What operating system are you running? If you are running a 32bit operating system the answer is no, but 64 *might* be able to, depending on the laptop.(personally, i havent tried more than 2GB so i really cant help you)

yah, i would give asus a call about this one. The laptop comes with a 2year warranty through them no matter where you buy it.

 

Web development, when you have to:
1. run a VM instance of XP for IE6 testing
2. Photoshop (600MB ram on average alone, working with multi-layer comps)
3. ~10 other tools
4. 3 browsers (FF, IE7, Safari).
5. an instance of a Java app (200-300MB alone)

The box is chocking under the 3.07GB available with the setup on Vista 32-bit. If I can get entire 4GB with a 64-bit OS, it wouldn't be that much of an improvement.

 

Is it possible to get 1440 x 900 resolution on this laptop?

 

Only if you get the crappy screen replaced.

 

the F3Sv shipped in three different models, X1, A1 and B1.

The A1 is the model with the 1440x900 screen so if you did not get the A1 then no, unless you can get the screen replaced.

(the X1 has a lower screen res than the A1, the B1 has a higher screen res than the A1. I cant remember the actual resolutions these two have though)

 

I have AK136G and my screen resolution is 1680 x 1050

 

Woah! I didnt know such resolution for the f3 series existed. Will that screen fit any F3 (eg f3sg) series or are they different hardware?

 

guys my f3sv-a1 has a problem

i was refreshing my WEI score since i updated my video drivers fm the asus website to 174.82 (its an official asus notebook video driver supporting 8600m GS)

during the ongoing WEI scoring the driver crashed a few times but "recovered".

i repeated the WEI scoring again because the previous numbers might not be accurate because of the crashes. but then the driver crashed again for the final time.

now booting up i dont get any display, a few horizontal lines and the backlight indicating the monitor is On but no display. i can hear the booting sounds.

a bit of background, i use this notebook for office and internet work. the game im currently playing is Supreme commander on self recommended settings. according to hardware monitor my temps peak at 75c for the cpu and 95c for the gpu for a couple of hours. it usually sits on a desk rarely use it outside and i transport it in a swiss gear backpack. in other words its well taken cared of.

is this the dreaded faulty/defective nvidia GPU? or the LCD.

my warranty is upto july 2009. but if there is a chance to recover it via DIY. i rather not send it yet to asus service. especially if its only a software failure and not yet hardware failure.

 

Looks like a faulty GPU. To isolate GPU versus screen, plug in an external monitor. If you get an image, it's the LCD. Otherwise, the GPU.

If problems show at the POST screen/in the BIOS, you can be sure it's not software... it's either firmware or hardware.

 

i have mixed emotions with my laptop being out of commisioned.

first, im not happy one of my stuff is broken. have to use my trusty athlon64 desktop.

second, i guess ever since it was discovered about the nvidia gpu defects, every owner of a nvidia gpu wished their unit will break down within the warranty period.

anyways if its a hardware failure (gpu gpu) i hope asus warranty replace it with a better unit. whatever kind that is. something not affected or least affected by the defects.

f3sv owners; has there been a f3sv that had their gpu or lcd replaced under warranty?

thanks EBE.

 

my f3sv came alive after idling (i was recharging its battery before sending it to service). blank screen for about twenty minutes then it rebooted a couple of times, then it is as if things are normal again.

i reverted back to asus vga driver 167.55 from 174, rebooted it then the same problem of hanged/no display/no apperent life except for the beeps and the fan. a couple of restarts same thing.

but somehow it started normally

i was redoing the WEI since it was the last thing i knew i was doing before the crash, this message occured "nvlddmkm"

i never had this before, did the google and it seems it happens a lot and many have there own versions how to fix it.

but im asking fellow asus users, what do you think is the solution to my problem? is there any hardware faults involved?

thanks

 

honestly, if you are getting system beeps and there is no display when you turn it on then its faulty hardware. Before you send it off remove anything extra you added (such as RAM, HDD, etc.) and test it without the extra parts. If it still wont work then sending it to ASUS is your best option.