V6V Screen and Fan--

Help me, Obi-wan ASUS forum, you're my only hope.

I've searched the forums, but I've found mixed reports (aren't they always) on the V6V screen and fan.

On the screen:

First off, I prefer matte screens to glossy. So that's not the issue. Second, I understand the V6V comes with the zero bright pixel policy. Third, viewing angles are of minimal concern. I spend 90 percent of my time staring at the screen head-on.

But I'm concerned about color reproduction, black blacks, and white whites. I'm also bothered by sparkles and blemishes. Most of my work is in Photoshop, photography, and web design, so I was irked by the review here (one of the few on the V6V), which has mixed things to say about the display. Can anyone, especially folks with the computer in hand, give me their thoughts?

On the fan:

I understand that fan noise and heat will ramp up with hefty use, especially in games. However, I do prefer to not work on a computer with ear muffs.

The same review above complains about the fan - constantly on, loud-ish, blah-blah-blah. But then the review here directly contradicts it. To wit: The V6V is a quiet machine, it makes little to no noise. The fan and hard drive do a good drive of keeping the noise down, the fan rarely kicks in.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to where the truth lies?

Thanks!

 

Well I can tell you this much...... both of those notebooks that you're pointing to the reviews of, not only came from the same batch, but they were even successive serial numbers... so they were made one right after the other.

I'm not sure how Andrew used the V6, but I know that Thai over at Laptop Logic didn't think a notebook without 180 degree viewing angles horizonally and vertically would be good apparently. If you're looking at the display head on it's very nice (other people who have it can chime in anytime).... The colors and brightness are higher than a regular matte lcd screen, but not quite what you'd get on say the W3 with the glaretype screen.

As far as fan noise.. the system is pretty quiet. The only time the cpu and gpu get hot enough to require a faster fan which you may hear more is when you're really pushing it........ say watching a dvd or playing a game. Well, unless you're doing one of those two things with the sound off..... you're not going to be bothered by it. Does that make sense?

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Yep. I just want to avoid the situation with my venerable Dell 2100, which now sounds like a grinding whine when the fan kicks into high gear. Some noise is tolerable, a fan that sounds like a dying goat is not.

As for the comparison with the W3V-type screen, would you say the color reproduction/"popping"/vibrance is like comparing a glossy photo to a matte photo?

 

I certainly had no problem with fan noise, a bit of a problem with heat when running some 3D benchmarks and pushing the machine, but the fans were not noisy or annoying in any way to my sense of hearing.

the screen was bright and I don't specifically recall a big problem with viewing angles, I do remember having better viewing angles horizontally than vertically. But I don't generally look at a screen from above or below a whole lot...who does unless you're standing over a co-workers shoulder looking at something they're showing you?

screen image:



DigitalCameraReview.com | BargainPDA.com | TabletPCReviewSpot.com

 

Right..... when you're pushing the cpu and gpu you're going to generate more heat, obviously. The important thing is whether it gets a little warm, or a little noisy.... really you want it to still be within operating temps, which I can assure you it is. So performance and/or life of the components aren't being compromised at all.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

I really can't understand why people say the v6v is silent. I recieved my v6v yesterday and the cpu fan startet right from bootup and never stopped. From 0-50 deg. it ran 1400rpm and 1700 rpm when it exeeded that temp. And that meant it ran 1700rpm when it was charging and idle!! My desktop pc was running under the table and I could still hear my notebook. Maybe I am

I am sending mine back. By the way my friend has a N6800Ne and it runs silent most of the time but when he updated the bios it began to run the fan constantly. Maybe it's me but inmy ears thatis too loud for a laptop in idle.

I think ASUS has gone crazy and begun to make bios software that has the cpufan running constantly.

Is it just me???

 

Hi all

I bought an Asus V6 (think it is a V6800V but was listed as a V6010V by the dealer - maybe they call them that in Australia where I live). I love computer games and at the moment I am playing World Of Warcraft.. well, I am now trying to at least.

It seems that the hard drive in this V6 is _horribly_ slow. While I was copying files to it from my old PC yesterday, I couldn't even play an MP3! I also just did a little test using hte Windows Task Manager and watched the CPU usage of explorer.exe while simply browsing through the directories on the C: - the CPU usage shoots to >90% on directories that have more than say, 50 files! This confirms the performance problems I have been having in World Of Warcraft - the machine runs great and the graphics are good and smooth.. until I turn around or the game needs to load new assets from the drive. Then the framerate drops to <5 frams a second. Just painful!

I did convert the drive to NTFS from FAT32 (there was a shortcut on the desktop to the converter and I prefer XP's NTFS so I figured I would convert it).

Also, I have lost network connectivity a couple times - Windows hasn't warned me of a lost connection, I just can't access anything (not even ping local machines on the LAN). I think I will be sending it back. Fortunately, someone else at my comany just bought one so I am going to see what the drive is like on that machine.

My main concern is with the drive speed - anyone else had similar problems?

Thanks

Andrew

 

What hard drive do you have in your V6?

What are you using for virus and spyware protection?

The US V6v has a Hitachi 60gb/5400rpm w/ 8mb cache...... it's not slow by any means though.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

I think it is the 5400rpm drive.. that is what was listed onthe deal sheet. Is there a way to check? The Windows Device Manager lists the disk drive as an HTS548060M9AT00 - gotta love that name. No manufacturer is listed. Perhaps I am missing a driver for it?

While I am at it, is there a way to get into the BIOS at boot time and can you set a power on password?

Thanks for the quick response!

Andrew

 

I jumped into the BIOS and checked the hard drive settings. I noticed that 32 bit disk transfers were disabled. I have enabled it but there doesn't seem to be a noticeable speed increase. I will test WoW over lunch.

Thanks for the help - any suggestions are most grateful received.

Andrew

 

F2 will get you into the bios.

Actually...... there isn't a name but HTS548060M9AT00 stands for:

Hitachi Travelstar and the 54 stands for 5400rpm.... not sure what the rest really is.

But you could also take the drive out very easily and double check for your own visual identification needs.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Thats a start.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

It's a limitation to 15.1" regular ratio SXGA+ regular matte lcd displays......

Your r505 has a 12", correct?

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by apart

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by PROPortable

 

Nup, still terrible. The framerate is actually not 5 frams a second. It is more like a frame (single frame) every 1-2 seconds as the program waits for the hard drive to provide the data. Painful and completely unplayable. Note, this is only when loading new objects in. If I stand in a field with no one else around and run forward, it is fine.

Ok, I just tried exiting out of the ASUS "Power4 Gear" utility and switch the Windows power management to "Always On". This made a significant difference! The game still froze a bit when large numbers of players came on screen but it is far improved from what it was. I still wouldn't call it good

I will keep everyone informed of progress.. I am thinking I might do a fresh install.

Andrew

 

Maybe it's as simple as you having recieved a bad drive... I can assure you that's not normal.

It's not a limitation to all 15.1" screens... I know that it's a limitation to all SXGA+ screens of this size in a regular lcd.... the colorshine (glaretype.. like the xbrite) would be even more expensive. The reason it wasn't used on this notebook was because they these new screens are slightly thicker (as can be seen in the W5/W3)..... but also it's meant for more the office type of person who types a lot. For office apps, a regular ratio, regular matte type lcd is preferred by most.

That's why it's used.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Oh, I see. Thanks for info. I guess these are some of the trades off in order to make it thinner.

 

I have a simple question before I send my V6V back. Is the CPU fan supossed to be running all the time? Because mine does right from when I turn it on.

 

Pro is right, that is not normal hdd behaviour for any notebook, let alone a brand new V6V, there are a few things you can do.

1) go to hatachi web site and download their hdd checking tool, this will check for errors etc, if you wanna send your laptop/hdd back for errors, you will need the report/ error code from this utility...ie you need to prove that the notebook is faulty otherwise you wont get far with a refund.

2) Check that the hdd is running is DMA mode and not PIO, as the symptoms you are reporting sound exactly like a hdd running in pio mode to me....ie very high CPU usage...pio runs everything via cpu..thus its slower, dma by passes cpu, thus you should see much of a change at all in cpu usage.
In fact I`m willing to bet that this is your problem....symptoms are a perfect match.

As for noise, first what power mode are you running in? if your on Max performance all the time then try switching to game mode, the reason is that game mode allows for dynamic switching and thus cpu will run cooler, fan will be need less and you wont notice any loss in performance. Max performance keeps cpu locked at its max clock rate thus creates lots more heat/fan noise...I would hate to see you send back a very nice V6V......I`ll take it for you.....lol
a


to check DMA mode right click on my computer>manage>device manager>IDE controllers> primary IDE> advance settings> then device 0 should say dma 5 or PIO> if not select DMA if avaliable from pull down menu, then reboot. if this doesnt work, make sure bios has dma enabled for hdd, press F2 on startup to get to bios. Still no luck then a complete format re-install will fix it.
a


ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM

 

Hey all

Over the weekend I did a reinstall (man it is easy with the Asus recovery partition - F9 at boot, press Y about 5 times, wait 20 minutes and you have a fresh WinXP install). This time I didn't convert to NTFS and everything seems to be running really nicely. I am going to grab the Hitachi drive utility just to be safe but maybe it was just a case of NTFS causing problems. I did note that after several hours of heavy use (read, playing world of warcraft) the drive did slow down a bit. Perhaps heat plays a part as well - maybe the CPU gets underclocked if it becomes too hot.

Out of interest, I tried to play WoW while on battery - worked wonderfully! Played for about 90mins before the 10% battery warning popped up. Very impressive considering the load.

One final question, what is the story these days with batteries? Should they be charged and discharged as often as possible? Should they be unplugged if they are fully charged and you have the AC adapter plugged in?

Thanks!

andrew

 

Glad to hear that it has worked out for you, I'm still betting that your drive was running in PIO mode for some reason....this is a common problem, sometimes windows switches to this mode if it encounters a few errors, there are a heap of articles on the web about this issue...even had the problem myself.
You should still be able to convert to NTFS, its a better file system IMHO. As for batteries, I've heard that it is best to keep them topped up rather than going thru a complete charge to empty cycle. And that it is good to remove the battery if your running on A/C all the time. However since moving to france and the dodgy power that cuts out when ever you turn on a heater, I've left my battery in so I have a built in UPS...also a few times when I did take my battery out I forgot and unpluged to take my lappie for a walk, and subsequently lost some data....so I guess its up to you it depends on you useage patterns on that one.
a


ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM

 

Hi there, I bought a V6V as well. What I can say about display is that I've been very disapointed about it, resolution is very good and clear but colour reproduction is so bad! I often use to work with pictures, photoshop and things like that and colours look so washed out and so "white" Maybe I must load a kind of colour profile or what else? I can't belive colours look so bad...

Apart from that the rest is exellent like many reviews say. In my experience I can tell the fan is very quite and it run fast (just a little bit noisy) only when needed. I play WoW and yes, the HD loads a lot in the begin of the game but after that the game is playable even when I teleport. I also play Half Life 2 quite well.

Any suggestion on how to correct colours?

 

If you have photoshop you can try using adobe gamma correction utility. This will allow you to create a ICC colour profile for your monitor that suits your tastes. This should be installed into the control panel. Just follow the onscreen prompts and you should be able to correct for those washed out colours. This utility is a must for any semi pro photo user.
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ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM