~V1s Owner's Lounge~

what chipset drivers are you using? asus supplied? or intel download...i dont know what was causing the random lock ups and crashes of explorer.exe and for my dvd drive to burn and copy so slow...onlything i can think of was a bad chipeset drive causing slow file operation..

even with win updates, and some moderate tweaks, i couldnt get the issues resloved...

---anyone have suggestions on which ram to get im want 4 gigs, but dont want to run into the problem of not being able to return malfunction ram to new egg, like i did with the gskill...

 

With Server 2008 I was using the latest Intel chipset driver. These were installed immediately after the OS installation and before any other drivers were installed (very important). You would want to do the same with Vista or XP x64. With Windows 7 Beta 1 I am using the native drivers that came with the OS, but when the final version is released I'll probably go with the latest from Intel's website.

My earlier post here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4176834&postcount=684, and the supplied link, should help you if you decide to try x64 again.

As for RAM, I'm running with 4GB of OCZ.

 

hello

can i install new ram and intel turbo memory module to my v1s without loosing the waranty?

 

Yes you can (at least for the RAM; Turbo Memory might possibly require heatsink disassembly although that is highly unlikely, wouldn't make sense).

Although if you will upgrade to 3GB+ of RAM, I don't think Turbo Memory will help you further, so you can save some money on that.

 

Finally I found some excellent vista x64 drivers at Intel's site. Go for "Mobile Intel® PM965 Express" folks!
Mobile Intel® 945 Express drivers made my v1s go extremely slow, so those drivers wasn't that good cipher7.
I also changed my HDD and here's the result: HDtune

To perfect this i upgraded the ram to 4gb (kingston) works great!
Guess I got this laptop at it's peak.

 

Anyone had any luck in getting a replacement main battery here in the US? I picked up one from an online retailer last September (was not marked as an Asus model, though), but it is not working, and I need to return/replace it. Would like to find an official Asus battery, but nobody seems to have them in stock.

 

Try contacting the seller for a replacement. I believe some Asus batteries (especially batteries for older notebook models) may not have the Asus logo on them.

I would also check with the Asus estore for the batteries if the one from the online retailer doesn't work out

 

Thanks for the response, David. Unfortunately, the Asus eStore is out of stock on these, and has been for a while (strange, since the V1Sn is about 1 year newer, and uses the same battery). I am in the process of contacting ExcaliberPC to see if they may have any available somewhere, despite not being listed on their site, or can at least point me in the right direction of getting one.

I'm not getting a good feeling on this, though. The online retailer I bought the other one from wants me to send my laptop in to Asus for service to see if it's a laptop issue (I'm 99.9% sure it is not), and if there is no problem, then they will replace the battery under warranty.

 

Hi All
It's been a while since I was here and I see some are nervous about heat problems. My laptop runs at 43-44 idle and 48-50 while light internet surfing. I bought Antec cooler with 2 fans blowing up and saw a couple of degrees drop, also it very portable and fits nicely in my backbag. I´m not sure how good or bad it is but I regulary use compressed air around and through all vents (Hpe I don't clough the puter up 1 day). Thought I'd my 2 cents worth in.
Have a good one guys.
Icejoki

 

Compressed air is good, but a better way to do it is to remove the fan (if possible to do it without disassembling the heatsink) and cleaning the fan blades and heat radiator fins with Q-tips.

If not possible to disassemble, just go with the Qtips in-between the fan blades, gently.

 

Hi Guy's

Need some advice please. Thinking about buying a new HDD for my V1S and the WD Scorpio Black 320 GB, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM seems like a good choice even though it's a bit pricey, anyone heard anything good/bad about these drives. I should see a performance boost using a 7200 RPM drive shouldn't I ? Thanks in advance and you have a good one.

 

ReHi

Sorry one other thing..... anyone know of any reason I can't use this HDD in my V1S.
Thx again

 

As long as the drive is a 2.5" SATA HDD, it will work on the V1 series.

 

Hi everyone,

I feel that my V1S is louder, and warmer than sometime ago. The problem seems to come from the gpu, the hottest part of the laptop.
I remember that I was able to surf for a while before the fan would start.
Since the time of these subjective memories, the lapop went to RMA for a motherboard change (I'm not sure what they did with the thermal paste) and vista got probably clumsier.
I was wondering if you could check the temperature of yours and see what would be the problem.

I use:
- Vista32, BIOS 301, I've tried 171.16, 174.31, 185.2 (powermizer on for all of them).
- Range of temp after 30 min of idling/surfing measured with speedfan and techpowerup:

• -gpu 61 - 69 (185.2 seems the coolest driver but powermizer had to be turned on)
• -temp1 62 to 67
• -core0 52-54
• -core1 about 50

I keep as minimal as I can the number of startup applications and services.

The fan is on at all time and this is my concern because of the noise.
Thanks

 

Clean your fan. After a while, the average temperature will increase.

 

Thanks amoney,
I did that already. It was not dirty at all. The fan is still on while idling/surfing and gpu temp=61-69 °C.

 

Those CPU and GPU temps don't seem terribly high. Also the fan always runs on many ASUS notebooks. But if it didn't do that before, I agree that it may mean something.

What GPU does the V1S have?

 

I believe the V1S uses the Nvidia 8600M GT graphics card.

Check to see if the thermal contact between the GPU and heatsink is aligned properly. If i recall correctly, the contact uses a thermal pad instead of the more efficient thermal paste compound. But if i'm wrong and it uses thermal paste, check to see if it's applied properly. Removing the GPU shouldn't void your warranty, since it uses a separate heatsink as the CPU (the "remove if void" sticker should be on the CPU heatsink).

I don't think NBR has a disassembly guide for the V1S, so I'll post one up shortly just in case.

EDIT: the disassemble guide is posted: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=364556

 

Hmm the dreaded 8600-series. Some G1S 8600-users report that temperatures increase in the last stages of the 8600's life, even if the fans are kept clean. So there is a good chance that your 8600 is dying, then.

If still under warranty, best idea is to RMA. Perhaps convince ASUS to give you get the V1Sn mobo+GPU instead, if the upgrade is possible. (they do it for the G1S --> G1Sn with good results).

 

Thank you guys. You really provided me with very valuable help.

Indeed, the V1S has the plagued 8600m gt 512Mb DDR2.

The driver in use right know (171.16) seems to work pretty good. TechPowerUp-GPU shows that PowerMizer works as expected by down-clocking the gpu at 169/100 MHz while idling/surfing.
However, I just booted up and the temperature is already at 66C just by writing this message.

Before I open it up to check the state of the heat sink (thanks for the link David!), I would be curious to know what is the temperature of your gpu while idling/surfing and what driver you got installed.

I'm not sure if they'll accept a RMA for a slight temperature shift. Do you think that this kind of issue can justify an RMA? What is a V1Sn mobo+GPU? Is it a V1S with a MXM module?


Since I bought this laptop I got constant problems with it, hardware or Vista related. What a piece of junk!
This laptop already got a RMA. They changed the motherboard and they broke the "void sticker" themselves. I wonder if this may be an issue too for any future RMA...

I still have my presario 2800 (radeon 7500) in use that I bought it in 2000. Ok, that stuff is heavy but amazingly reliable!

 

http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=RcpguNbG8IhFazo5#

The main difference that matters in this topic is the GPU:
NVIDIA® GeForce® 9500M G, External 512MB VRAM

That heats up less than the 8600, which usually means that it'll last longer, especially given the fact that 8600 is virtually for sure affected by the nVidia bad bumps problem, whereas for the 9500 things are not so clear.

So if the V1S layout is compatible with a V1Sn motherboard, and in RMA they exchange the V1S mobo+GPU with the V1Sn mobo+GPU, there is a good chance you will have a cooler running, longer lasting notebook.

Since they were the ones that broke the sticker, I would not let that stop me from claiming a RMA. They can argue on its basis of course... so there are no guarantees.

 

Well, after having glanced at the disassemble guide I couldn't resist to have a quick look at the gpu. It took me five min.

1- The "VGA board module" seems to be easily replaceable since it is not soldered to the motherboard. I don't know much about it but it seems to be MXM to me. Is it upgradeable?

2- The chip was free of any compound, I could read what is written on it. Its surface was only slightly sticky. I wonder if they forgot to put any grease/thermal compound during the last RMA.

Any advice on what I should do? Should I argue for a RMA or should I try to fix it myself with grease or other thermal compound?

The gpu is back to 64C...

 

Thanks EBE.

I'll ask for a RMA.

This is going to be the third one on this laptop!

 

Hmm if there is no thermal paste and the chip connects directly to a heatsink (as opposed to a thermal pad, which has roughly the same function as thermal paste); then that's not good and can definitely account for the higher temperatures.

In any case given that this is the 8600 and that because of the high temps the 8600 is probably far gone down the slope into oblivion , I think the RMA is the better option; especially if you convince them to upgrade your computer to V1Sn mobo+GPU. Otherwise, at least you get a new 8600 and that might add one year or so of life to the computer.

 

I didn't measure the temperature while gaming but all i know is that the fan turns crazy, it's like the lapop is going to take off!

Yes, that weird. It's like the chip was stuck to the cooling system by a tiny layer of glue that completely dried off. Now the chip is just loosely contacting the cooling pad. How is it supposed to look like?

wow, 1 year to go! Is 3 years (with already 2 RMAs+1 RMA to come) the life expectancy of a 1800$ laptop these days...

I've just sent a quick note to Asus technical support saying that the gpu is getting hot and that the laptop probably need another RMA. I didn't talk about the void sticker yet and I don't have any clue on how I can convince them to get my laptop a gpu upgrade (i.e. a 9500M)...i feel that at this point Asus could just screw me all the way.

Any advice to fight the case?

 

PS: I've been reading up through the post. The hot gpu has been noticed by some other people. It seems that Asus is going to be flooded by a wave of hot gpus. Are they going to upgrade them all?

 

Ok, so a heatsink is a metal plate.

A thermal pad is something that goes between the heatsink and the GPU die, when the heatsink is some distance away. It is a soft "rubbery" material some milimeters thick.

When there is no thermal pad, the GPU should have thermal paste on it in order to ensure proper thermal contact between the die and the heatsink. When there is a thermal pad, it takes the function of the thermal paste.

So if you have a thermal pad, it's OK not to have thermal paste (there should be no thermal paste). If you do NOT have a thermal pad, it is NOT OK not to have thermal paste, and you should add some -- otherwise the GPU will be burning hot.

From your description it would appear you have a thermal pad, is that correct?

Take the above with a grain of salt, I'm no specialist in these things, so perhaps wait for confirmation from another forum member.

About how ASUS is going to handle the 8600, I suspect they will exchange those still under warranty, upgrade to the 9500 if they feel kind and/or the client asks for it, but only when there is the possibility to do so (e.g., V1S -> Sn, G1S -> Sn), and ignore customers who have exceeded the warranty period unless they are very lucky.

 

Just to add on top of what EBE said, the picture below shows both thermal pads (circled in red) and thermal paste (between the thermal pads). The image is from my Dell E6400 laptop.



Close up on thermal pad:


As EBE mentioned, if you're using a thermal pad, under no circumstance should thermal paste be used at the same time.

 

Thank you guys for these very thorough and documented explanations. I really appreciate that.

The gpu and the heat sink are both bear; there is no pad, no thermal paste on either parts. There is only a translucent sticky residual on the surface of the gpu. This sticky thing is less than one tenth of a mm thick. Perhaps it is the glue supposed to stick to a thermal pad that they probably forgot to put back during the last RMA. Who knows.

This together with the broken void sticker, I am so afraid that they are going to think that I tempered with the laptop. It is of course not the case.

I got an answer to my short mail to asus support telling me to update/reset the bios and if that doesn't work to call for a RMA. These days are very bad for a RMA, I really need this ed laptop.

 

Alright, given that the warranty sticker is broken anyway.

Why not add some thermal paste (do make extra sure there really is no thermal pad before hand -- notice in the pictures that the thermal pad does not stick to the GPU but to the heatsink, so it lifts with the heatsink).

That will probably improve temps quite a bit, and will get you through this period when you need the laptop.

Then when you can afford to send it in for repairs, do so.

It's definitely not a good idea to keep it running without a proper thermal contact between the heatsink and GPU.

 

I emailed Asus explaining the full story :gpu overheating+void sticker broken. I also asked them the 9500 upgrade since my current 8600m ran hot for a year and that this gpu is a notorious faulty part. They did not respond anything about it, they just emailed me a UPS form for a RMA.

I will send them the laptop sometime end of next month. I'll let you know what they did to it.

 

I got it back from RMA:
-the temperatures are now slightly cooler than before. The gpu is 57C and the cpus are 46C while idling. SUrfing brings these temps to 60C and 52C respectively. They did not replaced the 8600m by a 9500m as I suggested them. I imagine that they may have considered it if the gpu was really dead. In this case the gpu and cpus were only hotter than expected. The fan looks new too. It is still constantly on but noticeably quieter than before the repair. They also put a new voided-if-broken sticker on the cpu.
-they changed the screen since a zone of the size of a penny was slightly darker.
-they added a new battery. The old one couldn't reached 100% charge. I have two batteries now.
-they also added a new power supply. They probably got confused while packing the laptop. Now, I have two of them (!?).

 

Herv, how long did Asus have your laptop? I need to send mine in, as well, for several reasons, and am just curious how long their turnaround times are these days.

 

I've dropped it off on Thursday afternoon and it came back in on Tuesday morning. The last two RMAs that this laptop already got last year took a week each.

I have a question concerning the MXM capability of the V1S just in case my 8600m burns out after that the warranty expired:
I saw that the BIOS301 for the V1S contains both, the vbios for the 8600m and for the 9500m. Does anyone know if it is straight forward to upgrade the 8600m of the V1S to 9500m or 9600m?

 

Hi E.B.E. and all,

I'm still using my V1J from 2006. I've installed Windows 7 (32-bit) alongside XP, and it runs fine, except for a couple of irritating problems.

- Speedstep doesn't seem to kick in, hence the processor is constantly at 1833mhz. The temperatures are normally around 65 celcius in XP. In comparation Win7 would stay normally at around 70, which means the fan is constantly at an audible level, and with any stress to the processor it's getting at around 80 c.

- Power4Gear Extreme installed ok, but after that I ran into serious problems with heat, and almost fried the processor with the "quiet office" mode. P4G would not uninstall completely, and I was forced to reinstall Win7.

I guess the latest V1 have little to do with my notebook, but any tips would be appreciated, especially regarding the software (p4g etc.) versions to try. I'll continue testing...

 

When i sent my in on Monday of some week, I had gotten it back by the Thursday of the same week.

 

Thanks, zoku (and herv). I am just waiting to get my RMA number from Asus so I can get this thing in the mail, get it fixed, and get it back.

 

Have you installed all the ATK drivers and utilities correctly?

[ATK drivers (also called ATK100 sometimes); ATK Generic Function Utility are the most important I believe]

ATK drivers are partly responsible for power management.

 

I'm with the same problem. My V1S temperatures are high as hell (around 74ºC to de processor and 85º the graphic card.. The fan also is contantly running at full speed, making and annoying and embrassing noise!.. I have Windows 7 build 7100 32bit, and all drivers are well installed.

 

Hmm. Are you sure it's because of Windows 7, or could it also be due to dirty fans/radiator? If you're unsure, it wouldn't hurt to check for the latter by removing the panels on the bottom of the notebook. Remove the dust on the fan blades and from the radiator (fins). See the ASUS cleaning guide for an outline of the process (Info Booth).

 

It was dust.. OMG there was a ton of it!! The air could barely get out!

 

Good, nice to see I helped to isolate the problem! Enjoy your (coolrunning) computer!

 

Thanks again mate,

 

Now that the guarantee is almost expired, i'm just wondering if i can do some modifications...
1) Can i swap my t7700 with the t9300? will i have some gain perfomance or better battery life?
2) Has anyone find out if there's a way to change the graphic card with another one? i can't be waiting for the 8600gt to just die.
3) Is there a way to install a portable watercooling setup?
4) is the battery problem resolved? because i have to order a new battery and i was thinking about getting the modular too...

thnx in advance...

 

nemesis, I don't have the answer to questions 1-3, but I haven't heard any confirmation on the battery problems being resolved. I just got a new battery (actual Asus main battery, not one of the supposed OEM versions you see on eBay for $50), and I don't plan on using my modular battery at all.

If you want to give the modular battery a shot, let me know. I was going to put it on eBay anyway to see if anyone else could get some use out of it. Otherwise it is just going to be collecting dust on my shelf.

 

Never heard of watercooling for a notebook

Also GPU swap probably won't work, unless you're willing to swap for the entire motherboard + GPU of the V1Sn -- which may help in addressing the premature death of the GPU as well (assuming the V1Sn GPU isn't affected).

 

Hi,

I have the exact same issue.

Before RMA my V1S temps would go up to insane heights and the notebook would shutdown. I've done the ASUS support recommended BIOS upgrade, which solved the shutdowns, but the not the overheating problem, so I kept on bugging them until they replaced the thermal module.

Now the GPU is at a constant steady 60 degrees, but my CPU temps would jump up and down even when I'm doing basic browsing.

More importantly, I get those frustating shutdowns again and it doesn't want to go away!

So, if anyone has more information about this "prefetch and intel memory ribon" thing I would like to hear more about it!

How long does it take for this to normalize? I'm thinking of doing a VISTA reinstall too, but apparently VISTA doesn't have much to do with this...

 

Jumping up and down? By how much? Does that involve the fan - that is, does the fan start spinning fast before it drops? Otherwise it can also be sensor errors.

Are you sure you do not have CPU-intensive software running in the background? Maybe even malware? A virus scan with a good antivirus software (Avira for instance) might help to detect that. It can also be a buggy application, start up Task Manager and follow the CPU consumption of the processes. Although, the fact that the computer shutsdown does point to graver problems.

I have no idea about this.

 

The fan is apparently doing its job (starts spinning faster before the temp drops), so I was suspecting the sensors, too, first.

I have Real Temp and SpeedFan installed, but I'm not sure the temp readings I get from them are accurate, i.e. CPU idle can give anything between 55-75C, opening Youtube and playing a simple vid raises it to 99C. Then it drops to 85C when I switch to a different tab in the browser while still playing the vid in the background. SpeedFan gives a 3%-3% load on the cores when the vid is playing in the background, switching back to the video tab load goes up to 10-15%. (TjMax is set to 100 in RealTemp which is the default setting, probably not accurate for mobile CPUs?)

I have AVG antivirus and I was also monitoring processes and CPU usage in Task Manager earlier but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.

Btw, it's actually OK now.

I tried a few things, and it seems something helped. I don't know which one though (I did 1+2 at the same time):

1. I went into the Intel ME/AMT bios by pressing CTRL-P at startup and set a new password (tried this earlier but didn't know you need capital letters and symbols, too). This caused the feature to be enabled and upon Vista startup I was presented with a dialog window saying that Intel AMT is now enabled and I have a new tray info status icon now.

2 (Most likely candidate I've disabled all of my non Windows services in msconfig and also all startup applications.

After this I've been playing fallout3 for 2 hours and also watching youtube videos, browsing, doing misc stuff I consider normal use, and there were no shutdowns, whereas earlier even loading Vista would sometime end in a shutdown. YAY!

I've also tried re-adding most of my startup apps and services, skipping only a few, and it's still going. *fingers crossed* yeah, just had an hour session of fallout3 again, and no shutdowns whatsoever.

What's strange is that now the reported temperature while playing is a constant 98-99 for CPU and stable 73-74 for GPU with stable good performance.

Before the RMA and the BIOS upgrade from 206 to 301 it would be 80-99 CPU and 90-100+ GPU with a noticable drop in performance when above 95. Anything more than a few seconds of 100+ of either CPU or GPU would end in shutdown.

 

Those temperatures are definitely not healthy for the CPU, if they are correct.

Moreover, if the fan starts spinning hard before the temps drop then it is most likely not a sensor error, but a real temperature increase.

SpeedFan is not compatible with later mainboards and BIOSes, I would recommend using something else. I do not know the RealTemp software. I would recommend for CPU temperature monitoring software from the range: HWMonitor, CPU-Z, Everest, RMClock.

If those CPU temperatures are indeed correct (as they seem to be after putting all the information together, overheating shutdowns, fan spinning, reported temps) then I repeat, they are definitely NOT healthy. What I suspect is poor thermal paste and/or heatsink installation during the repair that you had. If you have verified the large temperatures I would strongly recommend sending it back in for a correct heatsink installation (if you are still under warranty) or, if you're no longer under warranty, removing the heatsink, reapplying thermal paste correctly, and making sure the heatsink is not warped and is properly installed.