Gigabyte U2442 Line

Did anyone solve the problem with the fan? Frequently turning on for 2 seconds while browsing and office.

 

Recovering from a BLACK SCREEN - system does not post any BIOS and does not boot to Windows:

For anyone dealing with a problem like this, I am posting what I did to recover my system.

The Smart Recovery button did not work - the screen remained black. I suspected that the BIOS may have been corrupt or that the system was stuck in the "Fast Boot" version of "Off."

Does anyone know if the smart recovery button will work if it is in "Fast Boot Off" as opposed to "Really Off"?

Is there a way to turn it "Really Off" by pressing or holding buttons or do you need to power it down as such from Windows?


Here is how I recovered:
1) Smart Recover button did not work.
2) Tried all kinds of bootable images from USB memory sticks and USB DVD ROMs - nothing worked. BTW, none of these bootable images were EFI.
3) Finally, I removed the back of the case (~15-20 screws). I unplugged the main battery, CMOS battery, the RAM and the mSATA drive. Then I plugged all it back in. Reassembled the unit. Immediately pressed the smart recovery button (did not press the normal power button). It brought up the smart recovery application and I was able to restore the system. Since I had not yet used the system, I was not concerned with saving any stuff I had on it, so I selected the option to completely restore the system into out-of-the-box state. It's working fine now and I like it.

Any theories on why this worked? Was it unplugging the main battery and getting it to be "Really Off" as opposed to "Fast Boot Off"?
Was it unplugging the CMOS battery?

 

I've found that turning the fans to passive and leaving the computer in power saver mode usually keeps the fans off (you can turn up the brightness yourself).

Emailed Gigabyte about the fans and they claim they are working on a bios update.

Alfredo, the Speed Fan guy has looked into the problem but wasn't able to find any information on the fans.

That's all I've got. Hopefully someone comes up with a solution soon. This laptop would be perfect if not for the fans.

I have the N version btw.

 

How can you turn the fans to passive?

 

-Power Options (right click the battery icon on your taskbar)
-Change plan settings
-Change advanced power settings
-Processor power management (expand the option tree)
-System cooling policy

Hope this helps. I have the fans revving up on my U2442V all the time too and is annoying - the whole point of the ULV model is low power consumption, but if the fans turn on when opening Chrome, it completely negates this...

 

GIGABYTE U2442F Ultrabook Laptop Review :: TweakTown USA Edition

Gigabyte U2142 And U2442F Ultrabooks Unveiled At CES 2013 | Ubergizmo
Seems waiting till feb now...

 

^
Seriously?
Gigabyte has been delaying and delaying the U2442F almost about everywhere. It's still not available here, and it's pretty hard to get in Germany.
What is the point in announcing a new model (The model you mentioned should be called U2442D, and not F) while they still have problems delivering the other models?
Also the 'older' F model has a 650m which should be better than the 730m delivered with the 'D'. Which is just a slightly higher clocked 645m according to notebookcheck.
Why introduce a model with a weaker GPU and no other differences? They already have 3 u2442 models in the market. I don't see the point. No thunderbolt either.

 

By the time it arrives the next gen will be announced.

Why do the OEMs do this? Bah.

 

It is edging too far into this year.

Still interested because it's still one of a kind, but I'm sure that will change within the next 6 months.

 

The Samsung Series 7 Ultra will take the sales imo, the 1080p screen is too much of an attraction. Though the 730m is a good improvement over the 640m. It's somewhere between the 645m and 650m - not a bad upgrade for the i5 lines if they keep the end point price the same.

 

does anyone know how to disable the secure boot option in the bios?

 

According to Gigabyte the 'D' model comes with an i7. So if the pricing is the same as the 'F', I don't see why anybody would pick it over the 650m.

And yeah. 1080p is sort of a 'must' now. Cramming this into a 13' laptop will result in some crispy clear images. But 1600x900 for a 14' is still good.

 

with new samsung chrono laptop with ati 8870 coming out, this laptop is history.. goodbye, and thank god i didn't pull the trigger on this one

 

You have to thank Gigabyte. They didn't manage to deliver the laptop in time.
They would've gotten some extra sales if they managed to release the 'F' model in December.

 

It's not just that, the 1080p 13.3" samsung is IPS with good colours and viewing angles and gigabyte are using a bad TN panel...

I think the ultra is more a direct competitor, the 15+ inch laptops don't really compete with the 14" or 13.3" models. We just need to find out what the 8570m is like. I suspect it'll be more like a 630m but at this point samsung might actually ship their ultra before gigabyte does...

EDIT: panic over, the 8570m is about the same as the 620m or lower... it's only 2x faster than the HD4000 it augments. Mostly useless.
Guess gigabyte are still top dogs for best GPU in the form factor.

 

Hi all,

(In addition to lurking in this thread!) I have been following Gigabyte at CES 2013, and it looks like they are due to release a u2442 with a touch screen (u2442dt?) in Q2 2013. If it has a 1080p IPS and a thunderbolt port, that would make it the ideal 14" ultrabook money can buy in my opinion. The only variable is.. if it comes with a 730m instead of a 650m, it might perversely make it graphically inferior than the u2442f! Also related to the graphical issue is what the vram is clocked at.. ddr3 or ddr5..

Any thoughts? Is getting a u2442f now better than holding out for a (possible) u2442dt?

Also, I looked at the new Samsung series 7 ultra, and the 8570m in it would be much inferior to either the 640m or 650m, so, in my opinion, it shouldn't skew our discussion about the u2442. And this is something others have already concluded. However, I must admit that the Samsung looks prettier!

Thanks guys, I hope to be much more of a poster than a lurker from now on!

 

U2442DT seems like a ghost... Luckily the 730m is actually between the 645m and 650m, so it's very very close in performance for presumably better energy efficiency.


It's close enough that I don't think I'd mind.

Chances of 1080p IPS? slim to none.
Chances of thunderbolt? none.

The thunderbolt port still has the plastic spacer filling it up as shown here and the viewing angles recorded when he moves it around implies TN panel but I could be wrong.
Gigabyte wouldn't have put 1080p on it, because that would have made me happy and that's not something they like doing as proven by the delay of the U2442F.

Also no where in the video did he mention haswell... you'd think he would have...

Haswell might throw a spanner in the works too...
http://www.techspot.com/news/51307-intel-haswell-integrated-graphics-are-on-par-with-geforce-gt-650m.html

 

7 Series Ultra:

Pros vs u2442:
Longer battery life (8 hours vs 5)
Higher res & quality screen (1080p IPS)
Touch display
More portable(slightly)

Cons vs u2442:
No backlit keyboard
No dual storage
Weaker graphics
Most likely not a dual fan system
Connectivity (Less ports)


I've been using my Gigabyte and I think 1600x900 is the perfect resolution at 14" and I probably wouldn't want to go higher. That being said, I believe the gigabyte is still the superior machine that's better engineered for higher performance.

 

Yeah I think the resolution is fine though going from TN to IPS would be a fantastic minor upgrade for the device. The U2442D and F are a little too close in specs not to cannibalise each other though...

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/comparison/list.aspx?ck=5&pids=4449,4399

 

Some people reporting that the last BIOS update change the Screen quality.
Can someone confirm this ?

I am thinking of buying the U2442. But im not sure if the screen Quality is enough for my Webdesign work....

 

can someone confirm or deny if there is a S/PDIF port in this ultrabook? don't need to be toslink(optical) but just if you can hooked it up for example with 5.1 using coax RCA to jack mono adapter? thx (when you click on speaker icon and choose playback devices is there apart from speakers and hdmi sound device also a digital device?) thx

 

I don't own this laptop, but you can use an external HDMI splitter for this (may not be feasible for portability of course). I've posted in far too much detail about it here.

 

Anyone else having crashing issues with the gfx? Games i play Guild Wars 2, Heroes of Newearth, HitMan Absolution and Xcom) and all of them will crash mid game. It gets really irritating cause i'll be in a dungeon and then the game crashes. Basically the screen will hang and then the screen will be distorted and pixelated. I would have to press ctrl alt delete and basically close the game or worse, i would have to restart the whole system. So far, blue screens occured about 5 times.

Any idea folks? A friend of mine mentioned somethin to do with the new Hard drive that i installed but when the game crashes, the Nvidia notification will say that some kernel crash or somthin like that.


I am currently on the Nvidia 310.90 version.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

What HDD did you install and are all your games installed on this new HDD? I've been playing BF3 and it has never crashed on me. It is installed on my 2nd HDD (a samsung 830). Try re installing one of the games your having problems with onto the mSATA and see if you have the same problems. If problems persist try re-installing Nvidia drivers or rolling back to a previous version.

 

Screen quality looks the same. Interestingly enough, battery bar used to show 5 hrs max on my U2442N before but now it says 6 hrs max. I didn't notice any other differences.

 

I just got my U2442N v2 which came installed with windows 8 and was wondering if anyone else is having a problem with their webcam flashing between blue and a regular color? I get a feeling my webcam driver is not the correct one.

I looked at the device manager and it just shows as an HD webcam with the hardware id of:

USB\VID_1BCF&PID_2C11&REV_1215&MI_00
USB\VID_1BCF&PID_2C11&MI_00

Which I can not find anywhere online.

Does anyone know what brand the webcam is? Also what is the driver they have installed.

I have attached what my device manager shows and the two colors that are alternating. I do not have an option to disable the white balance option in the webcam settings. Please help.

 

Hey Bazu1012, I've got a U2442F w/Win 8 since last week and I just spotted the same problem you are having. Sorry I have no solution, either. It may be a driver incompatibility with Windows 8. Somehow it happens more frequently if there is a direct light incident on the camera. Changing the powerline frequency setting seen at your last screenshot also affects the frequency of flashing.

Some general feelings about the laptop: Build quality is nice in my opinion, no misalignments or flaws, feels good in the hand. It's suprisingly light and thin, considering what it packs inside; and really fast and responsive. Keyboard feels nice, and backlighting is pretty much uniform. The best part is, with the 650M, full HD gaming on an external monitor via HDMI is possible, granted not with the highest AA AF settings. The fan noise while surfing is not disturbing in my opinion.

The only problem I've encountered is this webcam issue. Apart from that, what I rather don't like is that the screen is at most average, brightness is adequate but screen-door effect is really noticeable. And the speakers should have been louder. But if you are using external monitor/speakers at your desk like me, these two won't trouble you most of the time. As for traveling I can live with them. It'll be a joy to carry after my last notebook, which weighed 2.4 kg.

 

Hey kalpazar, thanks for letting me know that I contacted Gigabyte and they said they will release a webcam driver soon for windows 8. Also I agree that this laptop is great for what it has. The speakers are a bit low but I actually am ok with the display....looks fine and no screen door effect for me. The only thing that bother me are like you said the webcam but the fan does bother me a good amount. I think its either that it turns on and off which makes one notice it more instead of most laptops which just constantly have it running in the background. It could also be that the cpu fan and gpu fan run at different speeds and frequency.

Does your U2442F have them come on a lot or ever now and then? When on battery it is tolerable but when plugged in i feel both fans come on....could this be because the Nvidia card comes on? Gigabyte did tell me they are releasing a new driver for that to help with the fan noise. And I quote:

"Dear Customer,

We are currently validating a web cam and Nvidia driver. That should address your issues with the fan and webcam. It is in the finishing stages of completion and should be posted soon.

Thank you for choosing Gigabyte products"

One more question when the fan is off do you hear a slight buzzing or static noise? I do not know if maybe this is the mSSD which for me is a crucial M4 or the cpu but there is a buzzing like sound very light but there it sounds what could that be? Are all SSD quiet or have a static sound to them when running? is it the CPU? the motherboard?

 

Has anyone had problems with updating from Windows 7 to 8? I just got an error and it reverted back to 7. My first inkling is that I might have to update the bios to the winows 8 bios version, but I am a little nervous to. Does anybody know?

 

Hi Bazu1012, thanks for sharing the reply from Gigabyte, eagerly waiting a driver update. A better fan control would also be good. Yes, I can confirm that the fans come on every now and then, don't know if it's that necessary for keeping temperature under control. But to be honest that doesn't disturb me too much. And I also hear a static buzzing noise sometimes, when everything else is quiet. I can't tell if it's the SSD or something else on the mainboard, but it's not specific to your device only.

 

is the fan noise really annoying or not? is the ram upgradable to 16gb?

is the difference between gt220 and gtx640 LE high?

 

All

I have applied the new BIOS F007, set my cooling to passive, and have the Smart Manager "Smart Cooling" active. But my fan still kicks in all the time. Am I missing something?

thanks

 

Anyone know where to buy a U2442F in the US right now? The only two etailers I could find have no stock and tell me mid-March at the earliest. Thanks.

 

dont bother, just wait for new samsung ... this laptop is history

 

New Sammy is a 15.6er.
Can it accommodate both an ssd and a hd? I think ram is capped at like 10gb too right? Finally, I'm not sold on an AMD mobile gpu as yet.

 

I'm want to use my laptop with the lid always closed (external display,keyboard and mouse). So close lid is set to do nothing, and to sleep after 30 minutes plugged in. Now once in sleep mode I can't get it to wake without opening the lid and hitting the power button. In fact even with the lid open I have to hit the power button. I looked at device manager to un check "turn off usb hub", and to check keyboard and mouse "to allow this devide to wake computer" but the whole power management tab is missing from keyboard and mouse. So I check the BIOS but I can't find any kind of power management features dealing with "sleep, S1 vs S3" or "wake with USB" zilch. Is anyone getting this configuration to work so that you can wake form sleep using external keyboard or mouse?

 

Was playing around with Linux and Windows 8 and deleted all partitions - then wanted to go back to Win 7 so emailed Gigabyte to find out if they provide a recovery ISO and got this reply:

If the partition has been changed, Please note that as we have provided Smart Recovery build in the laptop, we are sorry that we do not provide extra recovery CD or Windows ISO to the end user. We suggest you to contact with our service center in Australia to arrange further help.

Very unimpressed - will probably never buy Gigabyte again because of this.

I found an ISO for Windows home so have reinstalled but just think its very poor service to not provide a recovery cd/iso - seems to be going the way of Apple where they dont want you to be able to do much yourself and want you to go to a service centre for everything.

 

This is industry standard practice. Admittedly though most companies will provide a tool to convert the backup partition to a set of DVDs though.

 

well its been a while since I bought a new system (before this one) but previous experience with Dell you used to get recovery and driver disks. I would be fine with an option to make your own disks too - but dont understand why an iso cant be provided for download either.

 

Glad they've delayed the UK/USA launch to mid march.
Gigabyte are bad at this.

 

Hey all,

The HDMI port on my U2442V laptop just went out. It no longer recognizes any external devices.

I purchased mine on 11/20/2012. I know it has a 2 year warranty, has anyone had any experience with warranty repairs?


Thanks.

 

Anyone here has a U2440N? I bought one two months ago, and overall cooling is terrible since the day I bought it.
CPU cooling alone seems to be okay. 2 hours of Prime95 "lots of heat" test gave me a max temp of 76 deg C. However, when the NVIDIA GPU is activated, it's a whole other story. From what I can tell, both the CPU and GPU are cooled by the same cooler, and the GPU's heat gets transferred over to the CPU. As a result, if I load up a demanding game such as Crysis 3, the CPU temp goes even past 90 deg C. The GPU itself stays in the 80s. Currently, I'm thinking of using this thing as is, and if something fails due to high temps (I rarely play demanding games on this, so that'll take a long time to happen, probably), I'll be sending it back for warranty.
But I'd like to know if there are any other U2440N owners here and if any, would like to ask about their experiences with this machine.

 

Sounds okay if not really late...

 

If someone had a greenish flashing webcam picture problem under certain light conditions like me, I found that there is already a patch available:

http://faq.gigabyte.com/FileUpload/FAQ/global/2568/nb-utility-SFWriteTool-en.zip

 

in the US, hows the support for this notebook? it seems Dynamism is one of the main sellers. how is their support.
what are the long term issues, if any, plaguing this notebook?

 

Tried the update and now my webcam doesnt work - in Skype it brings it up but the picture never appears

Anyone else done it?

Seems Gigabyte dont test their updates very thoroughly.

 

Has anyone found a proper keyboard protector this the U series? I'd love to have decent one that lets backlight through.

 

Looks like the U2442N and U2442D are available on Amazon still and I'm thinking about getting one. There's only a $25 difference between then .

Anyone know the differences between the CF-1 and the CF-2 versions? I read earlier in this thread that one is Win 7 and one is Win 8, but it looks like both version on Amazon are installed with Win 8. I'll probably reinstall Win 7 on it.

How is the heat on this thing when gaming? Is the N version decent? Any buggy issues on Win 7? I need an all-around laptop (travel a lot) that can also do light gaming and won't be able to wait for the new Haswells coming out later this year.

 

Just ordered a U2442F on Amazon for my wife to replace her faulty Toshiba.

Estimated delivery is between end of April - mid-May.

 

Anyone here got hands on the newest model (U2442T)? I guess it's nice they added a touchscreen model to the lineup, but when I google it, it seems like I get only foreign pages. So could be another long wait for those of us in NA interested in the product. Heck, I'm still looking for a good place to buy the U2442F.