~F3sv Owner's Lounge~

Hm, that's good

I think differences on graphics with 8600M GS and GT is only in games. I guess theses programs runs very well with both graphics cards.

 

PowerMizer is a good thing. It helps to reduce pwer consumption and save battery life. All it is doing is underclocking to the lowest clock necessary for the application you are running. The maximum clock the 8600M GS can achieve stock, is 540 Core, 400 Memory (DDR2 so it is actually running at 800 I believe).

I think the powermizer option can be turned on through certain drivers. I realize what you mean that it currently does not use it, which is a big downer. But if you use RivaTuner, you will relaize in the section where you control the clock speeds of your GPU and Memory, you can throttle down. It has three options:

2D Applications
Low Power 3D application
High Power 3d Application

Any way I still think no one has been able to achieve true 3D. True 3D can only be achieved in well...3 dimensions. When we can interact with a virtual world in 3 dimensions, and not on a screen, then we have truly achieved 3D. All efforts so far have been futile...Sorry Im just thinking outloud.

 

Ive always been running the system with 2 gigs of RAM. Made sure to have an extra stick ready the day the system arrived.

On the previous note...problem solved--
I hit the reset switch on the back and the system was able to POST with the LCD running. I started it in safe mode and rolled back the video driver, and the system was working fine. Started it several times to make sure. Then i just searched for driver updates in the device manager and it updated to some other driver.

Im a little hesistant now though to return to laptopvideo2go. I dont want to install another driver that supposedly works for the 8x00m cards and then realize that my computer wont POST properly 5 days later.

 

im using the newest one from the asus website and it works great, even better than the modded ones if you ask me. and glad to hear you fixed it.

 

Finally, I canceled my Vostro and bought an Asus F3SV-AP100C.

 

I think you won't regret it. Just and advice: if you are planning on doing benchmarks that run on windows and not in fullscreen, remember to turn off aero. There is a huge performance boost (in my case ~170% .

Note: this only applies to windowed benchmarks that draw more frames than the refresh rate of the laptop, in real applications there isn't need to turn off aero.

Two links about this issue:
http://www.spec.org/gpc/publish/vista_paper.html
http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9/

 

Well this is strange, RivaTuner says it's DDR3 in my notebook (clocked at 400). I suspect ASUS is shipping the same notebooks with different memory types, all clocked to the lowest common denominator.

But with the PowerMizer version included with 8M GPUS this should be dynamic, so that it changes between those three states on demand. This feature would allow to overclock the gpu a little (in the high power 3d profile), and have those overclocked frequency used only when gaming or running 3d intesive applications.

 

Rivatuner shows DDR3 in mine too

 

Thanks! I'll keep in mind for my benchmarks

I'm planning to install XP in other partition, and Linux if I can. It's possible? I think there's no drivers for XP in this laptop.
I read ProENGINEER doesn't run well in Vista...

 

Rivatuner's known to give wrong information with dx10 cards. A better test is the frequency at which you are able to clock your VRAM. If it's limited at 400MHz, it's DDR2. Anything higher, say 550 or thereabouts(upto 700), and it's DDR3. 400 MHz-500 MHz is a grey area. It's technically possible to OC DDR2 VRAM to 500 MHz, but mostly, it's unsuccessful.

BTW, Andy, your avatar looks like snape.

 

If you go to ASUS laptop forum you will find a thread about installing XP in this laptop. I think that there are people that successfully installed it.

I can overclock the VRAM up to 550, more and it will instantly hang the laptop. Anyway you seem right about the DDR version:

From ASUS forums:

In those forums, people is upset for this issue...

 

Hey guys...just an update on the problem ive been having.

So earlier my laptop wouldnt POST properly and the LED's would be lit but the screen was off. I thought i solved the problem by rolling back the graphics driver and then updating it with the one on the asus site. Its been about 3 days now, and all of a sudden my touchpad and my keyboard would stop working. Everytime the touchpad didnt work, the keypad didnt work either. I checked the device manager and sure enough there was a yellow caution sign beside the synaptics touchpad device. It said that the device could not connect. I rolledback the driver and that fixed the problem temporarily. Every now and then the unit will not POST properly and will just turn off on its own. or it will power up the fan and the LED's but the screen will remain off.

Any idea what the heck is going on???

Am running RAM probe (like memtest) right now to check to see whether my additional stick of memory is faulty. Fed-Ex should be arriving in a few days to pick up the unit and asus is arranging for a replacement. still pissed that errors come and go like theres no tomorrow.

 

Yeah, lol, it does! Is that a joke that I am not getting? Asus rep = Snape?

 

its SeverASUS Snape

 

LOL, did you come up with that all on your own??

 

Hm, in my country are selling F3SV, but not A1 / B1.
My F3SV (-AP100C) have T7500, 1440x900px, 2GB RAM and 8600M GS.
What F3SV is? :O

 

Hello all! I ordered my F3SV-A1 laptop a couple of days ago and should be getting it on Friday. Along with it, I ordered some ram. Do any of you think that the Kingston 1GB 200-Pin SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Notebook Memory is a good module for the notebook? Thanks!

 

sounds like an A1 did it with a B1 and you got its kid but really, do you have it already and those are the specs you actually got? or are those just the specs that the company says because if thats what they are telling you dont beleive them unless they did some processor swapping i guess

sounds good to me

 

I just want to make this very clear so no more confusion happens.

RIVATUNER is wrong people. It does reading of the card from driver and registry level not hardware level meaning it not accurate unless the drivers information has been integrated into its database.

The Asus F3sv has the 8600M with either DDR2 or GDDR2, depending on your region. I believe that North America some of them have GDDR2, because that is what I see listed on the VRAM in my notebook, but I am not quite sure. It is not DDR3 or GDDR3.

I can overclock to 550 Mhz comfortably, and remeber you are effectivley running at double that rate if I am not mistaken.

That is not an A1 or a B1. It is just an F3sv series notebook. X1 A1 and B1 are North America exclusive.

I would say what you did is actually best. Send it to Asus. I know it is inconvenient, but then again you paid for that warranty, might as well use it.

Any way it sounds like you might need to do a recovery or reformat. I am still unsure why you are unable to POST. It could very well be a corrupt or faulty BIOS flash chip, meaning your computer is having issues comunicating with the components, which is probably why so many components have been failing. Let Asus take care of it. There customer service is really good. Next day pick up, and they should return it in a week-2 weeks max.

 

think so so sane person can have that creativity. The timings clashed - arrival of my notebook and the deathly hallows. And I loved Snape's chapter

disappointing that its DDR2 but should I be? I mean after using it for a month, we do know how powerful the card is. Its good enough for me (FEAR, 3Ds MAX, Stalker) and just being DDR3 wont change much. Yes, it would matter to those who want to buy it but do we - existing users need to be disappointed?

 

o, lol i was way off

 

Aahm, OK, thanks.

 

Hi guys,

My f3sv has arrived today and I've just finished reading through the 38 pages of this thread!
What are your suggestions for my first evening with this machine?
Would you suggest to update all the drivers to latest from the asus site or do i try the modded versions mentioned earlier on in this thread?
I'm gonna be using this mainly for photoshop, but I'm not really into gaming other than a little tiger golf.

On a side note can anyone recommend a draft-n wireless adsl modem/router for here in the uk, or should i just wait until the draft-n specs are finalised? I will be networking two pc's on xp pro and my new f3sv.

I can't wait to get home for lunch and open up the box. It's like I feel 5 years old again!!!

Thanks for your time
Duncan

 

We could upload photos of our F3SV...

I'll receive it tomorrow.
I'm planning to try to install Vista, XP and Ubuntu... it's possible? Hmf, I hope it not explode.

 

Do exactly what I did. It arrived. I thanked the delivery guy/ courier person. I took it upstairs. I opened it. I took everything out of the box. Then the excitment was too much to handle so...I went sraight to the bathroom for a good 25 minutes

LOL. Ya I was in there for about that long, letting nature take its course.

Oh for sure. Just make sure you have three partitons. If it does explode please also provide pictures of such an event.

 

lol, really? thats pretty funny

but to that guy who asks what to do right away, i would recommend the asus drivers, but also try the modded drivers too, find which work best for what you need. I know that the asus drivers work best for me playing CSS, but im not sure about the stuff you are doing, the modded drivers might work better. Check for things like if it will not "refresh" the visuals for about a half second then get going again. I know thats what happened to me on the modded drivers but when i went to the asus driver that stopped.

 

Personally I have plenty of issues with modded drivers. That is why like Fittersman, I stick to the Asus drivers. I am using the current ones from the update website. They are so much better for the notebook, since they were designed for them.

One thing that bothers me though is I can't find updated ones for the 8600M GS on the nVidia website.

 

hi i've decided to get an f3sv a1 and i've got a question - will this notebook run the sims 2 with all it's expansion packs properly?

 

Yes...the game is now almost 3 years old

 

I might recomend for you to wait a few weeks before making your purchase. There are new refreshes of current notebooks that will offer better performance for a subtle price increase (about 100$). Check the New and updated Asus notebooks thread on page 2

 

Ya he is right. Might as well wait. I would even wait until september for some reviews of these notebooks start popping up, and for some good back to school deals. But if it is urgent and you need to purchase the notebook right away, I would go for the F3sv A1. Its a great computer. You will not be disappointed.

 

x2.

Actually, what the hay, x3

 

yes. waiting always helps. Just like with girls. I got my first PC - a Celeron 433 in 1999 for Rs. 37k ( ~$ 1K) .. few years later I got a P4 2.4 for 18k (~ $450).

But cant go wrong with an F3SV. I guess right now it has the best quality / Performance for its price (Probably second after the Dell 1520 but i havent used it. I have the F3SV and will definitely recommend it)

 

waiting does help...but heres what happens. You wait till september and see lower prices...then youre thinking..alright, so i waited a month and saw a price decrease of $X, then that means i can wait another month and see a price decrease of $2X. Now youve waited 2 months...and then a 3rd...and then a 4th. The apocalypse is approaching, pigs are flying, women are running the country (just kidding...we all know women dont run countries...just kidding again)

If it makes you happy...go ahead and spend right now.

 

Yeah, it's just that upgraded F3SV models will be out in a few weeks, and since the ideal time to buy is at the start of a model's lifetime, in this case waiting does make some sense. However, as mentioned, if you do need to spend right now then current offerings should be fine.

 

thanks a lot guys, you helped me make a decision i think i'll go for the f3sv
unfortunately i can't wait for any improved version cause i need a notebook as soon as possible but i guess i won't be disappointed ))

 

hey i just skimmed through 3x pages of this thread and i'm thinking of getting the F3SV-X1 for ~$1500 CDN, but from the earilier pages and other sites people recommend more memory so my question is...

what speed of ram works for this computer?
if i reformat the HDD and install XP would i be able to do a dual boot with the boot cd provided?

 

so when exactly are these new models coming out. Does anyone have a link?

 

Hey guys. I'm new to the forum. I've had my b1 for a couple months now. Love the computer, coping with Vista right now. My question is about the hotkeys. I use Firefox and it's set as the default browser but the hotkey still brings up IE7. Is there a way to change this?

 

I don't know if there's an official date, but mid to late August would be the earliest. Check this out for more info.

 

i would like to know how to do this too, i do remember reading a thread about this a while ago, i think it was for a different ASUS model too, but it was a while ago and im not about to find it again, i just use the quicklaunch buttons anyway

 

Hi, I purchased my F3SV-a1 about 3 weeks ago but didn't get around to using it much because i wasn't too happy with vista (seems a bit sluggish to me) makes the machine a bit unbearable to use, compatability issues too)

Over the last 2 days I took an interest in optimizing the machine for my use so heres where things stand right now:

I upgraded to 3 gigs of ram about a week after the purchase (immediate increase in performance, but vista still has to go )

I plan on following these instructions http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...&board_id=3&model=F3Sv&page=1&SLanguage=en-us.
to get the machine running xp. if that fails i've discovered a program called vlite which will allow me to strip away pieces of the vista installation from a normal (non recovery) vista disc. I've seen torrents of "optimized" vista cds that i suspect were made using this tool with significantly lower resource hogging and leaner installs.

Also a note for those that are interested the asus recovery cds do allow a bloatware free install. Install from the recovery disk and power the machine off when it prompts for the driver disk. then use the driver disk after first boot to selectively install drivers. The only difference between this method and an actual clean install is some limited options in partitioning. Using the option to install to first partition will eliminate the creation of a restore partition and you can always resize using a linux live cd with gparted.

..speaking of Linux. I've tried a number of linux live cds to test for compatability. Here's the run down.

VGA: nvidia's site says its supported by the newest nvidia driver, I have yet to test it. by modifying the xorgconfig file in knoppix, fedora live, kanotix to vesa instead of nv i managed to get it to work. Once I install arch64 i should be able to get it running with hardware acceleration, i'll keep you updated.
Audio: working fine in Fedora live, I didn't test the audio connectors on the side to see if output works from a device other than the speakers but i have no reason to think it doesn't.
Ethernet: there is a kernel module though it isn't included with all distributions (works at boot time with pclinuxos live)
Wifi: Haven't got it working yet (might still be able to) if I can't i'll get a pc-card to use for linux. Once again, i'll keep you updated.
touchpad: working
sd card reader: working
sata support: working
power management: changing power profiles in kde made a visible change in monitor brightness. CPU frequency changing gave an error messge to I'm guessing that didn't work, but its considerably better than my toshiba laptop.
bluetooth: daemon started, but i have no bluetooth devices to test if it was working
webcam: untested as of yet.

I plan on doing an xp install tomorrow morning using the above instructions and afterward an arch linux 64 bit install to see if i can get all the hardware working. Wish me luck

If any of you are interested in knowing more feel free to let me know shamounk/.....at..../gmail/.....do...t...../com

 

I just want to comment about waiting. When you plan to buy a laptop or any office or school tool for that matter, there are always peak times to purchase.

1. Christmas time or Boxing day
2. Late Spring early summer, new models released and good pricing
3. Back to School and early Fall, cheap prices on things that are out and good deals and combos

Always try to make your purchase within those time frames, because that is when you will be happy with your purchase.

 

So has anyone compiled a list of XP drivers and their locations for the F3sv? Mine arrived tomorrow and I want to get a slipstreamed CD ready.

 

My screen is grainy... I upgrade BIOS to 204, but grainy still here.

 

Where did you get 204, when 203 is the latest one that is out, just make sure your screen is at the highest possible resolution.

 

Compiled drivers and slipstreaming guide on page 23.

 

thraken,
I did that yesterday but I noticed that my performance in xp was about the same as my performance in vista. So i just went ahead and reinstalled vista to simplify my life a little. Its possible using the guide mentioned on one of the other pages in this forum but i'm not sure if its worth the time investment.

 

By performance, do you mean game performance or regular windows usage performance?

 

Not sure about that for Asus laptops. Usually, that's true for stores like best buy and futureshop but only on select laptops. Since reselllers are the ones providing asus laptops, I'm thinking that discounts will be hard to come by.